The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) successfully carried out an optical communication experiment using laser beams between its Optical Inter-orbit Communication Engineering Test Satellite “Kirari” (OICETS), at an altitude of about 600 km, and the optical ground station “OGS-OP” (Optical Ground Station Oberpfaffenhofen) of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Luft- und Raumfahrt, DLR, in Wessling, Bayern) at 10:13 a.m. on June 7, 2006 (Japan Standard Time, JST). JAXA and DLR confirmed that optical communication (downlink from the “Kirari”) was successfully performed for 3 minutes.
The “Kirari” has already performed a bi-directional optical communication experiment successfully with the optical ground station of the National Institute of Information and Communication Technology (NICT) last March. However, the DLR optical ground station is unique as it is a mobile station. Therefore, the success this time indicates the possibility of establishing a flexible optical communication network with a satellite and a mobile optical ground station.
The “Kirari” is scheduled to continue experiments including an optical communication test with an optical ground station and an inter-orbit optical communication test with the Advanced Relay and Technology Mission (ARTEMIS) of the European Space Agency (ESA) to acquire statistical data.
[Supplementary Information: Outline of the DRL Optical Ground Station]
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2006/06/20060609_kirari_e.html#at01