Available student project - Engineering Inter-spacecraft laser links

Research fields

Laser stabilization system used to test space prototypes

Project details

Inter-satellite laser links are an emerging technology with applications in Earth Observation, telecommunications, security, and, the focus of the CGA space technology group. Inter-satellite laser ranging is an enabling technology to for geodesy/gravity recovery for global water or climate monitoring on Earth (NASA/Germany GRACE Follow-On mission), planetary science like NASA’s lunar GRAIL mission, and the same technology needed to detect the merging of super-massive black hole mergers (e.g. LISA mission).

This project is designed to bring together all the required physics and engineering needed to form and maintain a laser-link between satellites. We collaborate with NASA and European counterparts on these tasks adapting to and optimizing the techniques.  

Further information

Project suitability

This research project can be tailored to suit students of the following type(s)

Contact supervisor

McKenzie, Kirk profile

Other supervisor(s)

Wade, Andrew profile
Zhang, Ya profile