Experimental hybrid antenna tracking of DSN for laser downlink of DSOC

Deep Space Station 13, located at NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Communication Center near Basto, California, is part of the agency's deep space network. It is a 34 meter experimental antenna that has been modified with an optical terminal (a square instrument located below the center of the antenna dish).

Since November 2023, DSS-13 has been tracking the downlink laser for deep space optical communication experiments in the NASA Psyche mission launched on October 13, 2023. Firstly, the antenna also synchronously receives radio frequency signals from the spacecraft as it travels through deep space to investigate the metal rich asteroid Psyche.

Figure A is a close-up lens of an optical terminal, consisting of seven segmented hexagonal mirrors that mimic the focusing aperture of a 3.3 foot telescope. When laser photons reach the antenna, each reflector will reflect the photons and accurately redirect them to a high exposure camera connected to the antenna sub reflector, which is suspended above the center of the dish antenna.

Then, the laser signal collected by the camera is transmitted through a fiber optic cable, which is fed into a low-temperature cooled semiconductor nanowire single photon detector. This detector was designed and built by JPL's Microelectronics Laboratory, and is the same detector used by the Palomar Observatory at the California Institute of Technology located in San Diego County, California, which serves as the downlink ground station for DSOC.

Goldstone is one of the three complexes that make up NASA's deep space network, which provides radio communication for all its interstellar spacecraft and is also used for radio astronomy and radar observations of the solar system and universe. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a department of the California Institute of Technology located in Pasadena, California, responsible for managing the agency's DSN.

Source: Laser Net