Study on the Optoelectronic Design for Korean Mobile Satellite Laser Ranging System

Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute has been developing one mobile and one stationary satellite laser ranging system for the space geodesy research and precise orbit determination since 2008, which are called as ARGO-M and ARGO-F, respectively. They will be capable of daytime laser ranging as well as nighttime and provide the accurate range measurements with millimeter level precision. Laser ranging accuracy is mostly dependent on the optics and optoelectronic system which consists of event timer, optoelectronic controller and photon detectors in the case of ARGO-M. In this study, the optoelectronic system of ARGO-M is addressed and its critical design is also presented. Additionally, the experiment of the integrated optoelectronic system was performed in the laboratory to validate the functional operation of each component and its results are analyzed to investigate ARGO-M performance in advance.