Steve Lambert, Lasercom chief engineer. In the early 2000s, he said, Boeing developed space Lasercom terminals for the U.S. Air Force’s Transformational Communications Satellite program, which was discontinued in 2009. Despite these efforts, Lasercom has historically evolved slowly and methodically because of fluctuating customer interest, technology maturity and unchanging funding levels, Lambert noted. Over the past decade, however, technology advances—such as the leveraging of commercial telecommunications products in Lasercom designs and renewed customer interest in its potential benefits of bandwidth, spectrum and security—have brought laser communications back to the forefront, Lambert said. Increasing talk of Mars exploration and the need for communications bandwidth played a big role. “We’re leveraging everything we’ve learned in our past 30 years,” Lambert said. “We’re really positioning ourselves to be there when the door opens up and the customer needs that we foresee become absolute.” The goal, Lambert said, is to have a mature Lasercom system available within the next two to three years. This includes applications for the military, the commercial market and NASA deep-space missions. “There are so many benefits and the technology has improved so much in the past 10 years, at some point it will be indispensable,” Burch said. If successful, Burch added, Lasercom won’t supplant radio-frequency communications; the two will co-exist. Broadcast mediums, such as television, still are better-suited for transmission across radio frequencies. In 1963, scientist Harold Rosen and Hughes Aircraft were responsible for a major communications breakthrough— the launch of a geostationary satellite. The technology enabled overseas TV transmissions for the first time and more dependable telephone service from country to country. Lasercom could be the next major communications milestone, with its potential to bring people on Earth closer together while sending its explorers deeper into the universe, according to program managers. “This is right in line with Boeing and our values,” Madni said. “In satellite history, we’ve built the backbone of our brand on a legacy of firsts, starting with Rosen. We’ve always pushed the envelope.” n DANIEL.W.RALEY@BOEING.COM Photos: (From top) Engineers Matthew Robinson, left, and Yongqiang Shi confer on Lasercom technology in their lab in El Segundo, Calif.; Jamal Madni, Lasercom business development lead and engineer, uses a mock-up telescope to demonstrate how the technology will work. BOB FERGUSON | BOEING DECEMBER 2015–JANUARY 2016 17
Frontiers December 2015 - January 2016 Issue
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