AITC Update
Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue30 1–31 July 2022
Acceptance of your conference abstract as a poster is not a reason to consider your research second rate. Many great collaborations have begun with conversations over posters, and the beginning of RSAA’s laser communication program is one of those, from way back in 2014. As the federal funding landscape has shifted over the last decade or so it has become increasingly important to translate research from one area to anothers. In this case it was the adoption of optical instruments and adaptive optics from astronomy, into other fields such as optical communications which sparked an ongoing collaboration with a number of researchers around the world, including DST, DLR (German Aerospace Centre), NASA, JAXA, UNSW, UWA, University of Auckland, and many others.
ANU has a global reputation for optics, photonics, quantum communication, and astronomical instrumentation. The RSAA laser comms program has put these together into a research program, supercharged by the creation of ANU InSpace. The application of advanced optical instruments and adaptive optics to communication can enable provable and un-hackable quantum communication, terabit data transfer to satellites, and globally secure communication networks. The technology developed and advanced for these applications can then feed back into astronomical instrumentation and provide more advanced detectors, deformable mirrors, optics, and test equipment.
To date the program has raised around $7M for RSAA & AITC, and over $22M for all participants. We are building Australia’s most advanced optical ground station, a quantum communication adaptive optics systems to link Mount Stromlo and ANU, turbulence profiling hardware and software (SCIDAR), and an optical-RF hybrid telescope. We are looking to equip the optical ground station with superconducting nanowire single photon counting detectors and a transmit system to support the NASA Artemis II mission (first crewed mission back to the moon) which will be equipped with an optical communication terminal. If all goes to plan we will be the ground station receiving press conferences from the astronauts, as our geographical location happens to be pointing towards the moon while they are scheduled to be awake and working. If the clouds hold off it should be a world class demonstration in-line with the Apollo transmissions to Australia.
We will be demonstrating quantum-key-distribution with researchers from RSPhys in the next 9 months, where we aim to show how adaptive optics can be used to improve how fast you can transmit quantum secure encryption keys. The system will have provable security and demonstrate the leading contender for technology to deploy in space to secure global-scale telecommunication. The improvements we make to our adaptive optics systems here feed back into the rest of the adaptive optics research program and will benefit a range of astronomy and space-science projects.
We are currently collecting data with a Stereo-SCIDAR system deployed on the 2.3 m telescope. The resolution of turbulent layers is exquisite and will add to the array of site testing already done at SSO. We hope to collect data over the next year to build up a profile of turbulent layer altitude and strength. This not only demonstrates the instrument and data processing capability, but allows us to better design optical systems and adaptive optics to match the conditions at SSO.
We would like to deploy what we have developed for remote data transfer. This could apply to remote telescopes or research stations such as those in Antarctica, but also to space missions. JWST is limited to around 28 Mbps with it’s radio-frequency communication system. Laser communication has already been demonstrated to the moon with 622 Mbps (NASA’s LADEE mission in 2012) - with increased bandwidth the next space telescope can be even bolder, and Mount Stromlo could very well be one of the receive stations!
In the AITC-1 integration hall at the moment is the 70 cm telescope which will become the ANU optical ground station to demonstrate a lot of this new technology. The dome should be arriving in the next few months to coincide with the facility construction. The team is looking forward to having a new science telescope on Mount Stromlo and the technology research it will produce!
Francis Bennet
