PlaneWave Instruments selected for Space Development Agency's optical ground station program
ADRIAN — An Adrian-based telescope manufacturing company is collaborating with an observatory construction company for the development and design of a laser communications optical ground station that will be utilized by the Space Development Agency.
Lenawee County’s own PlaneWave Instruments, which has its main campus in Adrian on North Main Street, will be partnering with Sea West Observatories on the project, according to a joint news release from PlaneWave and Sea West Observatories.
The Space Development Agency, the release said, will be using the optical ground station at the request of the United States Department of Defense to provide space-to-ground optical communications. In other words, the mission of the project is to demonstrate successful connections between various space-based optical communications terminals (OCTs) and an optical ground terminal.
What’s been named the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), the optical ground station includes the use of free-space optical communications to provide throughput and resiliency to the network, the release said.
SDA selected Mynaric, a leading provider of industrialized, cost-effective and scalable laser communications products, to contribute to the project, which is set to kick off in 2025.
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From there, Mynaric chose PlaneWave Instruments to manufacture the telescope, gimbal and enclosure. Sea West Observatories, which has more than 25 years of observatory construction experience and is based in California, was brought on to design and build the facility site and structure, the release said.
“In this collective effort, the resulting ground station will be a versatile, relocatable solution for space-to-ground optical communications,” the news release said.
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“... This project will be a tremendous step towards proliferating the benefits in data security and bandwidth offered by free-space optical communications,” Eric Blackhurst, vice president of sales and marketing at PlaneWave, said. “We believe that this will significantly enhance what the SDA can offer to other U.S. agencies in support of various missions. PlaneWave is thrilled to be working with the SDA, Mynaric and Sea West Observatories on this project.”
Optical communications, Blackhurst explained, has already seen significant use in interlinks between satellites, while development of ground-based systems for two-way communication between Earth and orbits using free-space optical communications (FSO) “is only seeing real deployment,” he said.
PlaneWave designs and manufactures research-class products for worldwide advanced applications such as Space Domain Awareness, satellite tracking, laser communications, quantum-key distribution, astronomical research and defense applications.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: PlaneWave Instruments selected for Space Development Agency program
