Overview of the Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration

The Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration (LLCD), a project being undertaken by MIT Lincoln Laboratory and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, represents NASA's first attempt to demonstrate optical communications from a lunar orbiting spacecraft to an Earth-based ground receiver. The LLCD space terminal will be flown on the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft, presently scheduled to launch in 2013. LLCD will demonstrate downlink optical communications at rates up to 620 Mbps, uplink optical communications at rates up to 20 Mbps, and two-way time-of-flight measurements with the potential to perform ranging with sub-centimeter accuracy. We describe the objectives of the LLCD program and discuss key technologies employed in the space and ground terminals.