The ESA's optical ground station for the EDRS-A LCT in-orbit test campaign: upgrades and test results

Since the successful demonstration of the Semiconductor-laser Inter-satellite Link EXperiment (SILEX) in 2001 between ARTEMIS and SPOT-4 satellites, the European Space Agency (ESA) and several European National Space Agencies have consolidated the effort in developing the so-called “second generation” of optical communications terminals with reduced mass, size and power consumption, and increased data transmission rate, [1].