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Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ground Station Mixed-Signal PCB and SFP Ethernet-to-Optical Connector for the Deployable Optical Receiver Aperture (DORA) CubeSat

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

The Deployable Optical Receiver Aperture (DORA) project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in collaboration with Arizona State University (ASU) aims to demonstrate 1 Gbps data rate for crosslink communications among small spacecraft. There are numerous applications for this technology, including satellite swarms/ constellations, and surface to orbit communications. DORA allows a satellite’s primary mission to continue without requiring the satellite to reorient for communication, thus enabling missions to use low-cost, off-the-shelf Altitude and Determination Control Systems (ADCS). DORA meet these specifications by replacing the spacecraft’s traditional receiving telescope with incident-angle sensitive photodiodes to steer the onboard transmitting laser in the corresponding direction. The DORA optical ground terminal (OGT) will be stationed on the ground to communicate with the DORA CubeSat in flight. This thesis project will address the ground station analog and digital electronics and data transfer needed to deliver data received from the DORA CubeSat to its final destination for processing and storage. The ground station mixed-signal PCB (GS-MSPCB) will serve as the interface between the terminal’s FPGA and the optical ground station control components. The FPGA will connect via an enhanced small form-factor pluggable (SFP+) port to an SFP switch and Wifi-6 router so that data may be accessed wirelessly.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master
Department dc:contributor.department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Grantor dc:publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Year dc:date.issued
2022

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Arnold, Julia Marshall
Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
  • Hom, Gim P.

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
  • Copyright MIT

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Handle dc:identifier.uri
https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144913
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/144913

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
MIT
Base URL
dspace.mit.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
related terms
citation

Arnold, Julia Marshall. Ground Station Mixed-Signal PCB and SFP Ethernet-to-Optical Connector for the Deployable Optical Receiver Aperture (DORA) CubeSat. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2022. https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144913