Miniature optical terminals

Inter-Satellite Links (ISL's) will become important elements for the archit ecture of the future in-orbit communications infrastructure. Various applic ation scenarios for optical ISL's will be discussed and the associated syst em/terminal requirements will be outlined. The basic design considerations influencing an optical ISL design will be recalled and some promising conce pts for high data rate miniature terminals will be identified. The design o f a Miniature Optical Terminal for data rates of > 1 Gbps will be presented and possible in-orbit demonstration scenarios will be discussed.