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Objectives
The goal of this activity was to design, manufacture and demonstrate operation of fibre-optic transceivers operating at high frequencies for space use.
SpaceWire standard is already widely used for connecting spacecraft equipment and SpaceFibre is meant to be a high throughput interface capable for transmitting and receiving multiple SpaceWire links using virtual channels over a fibre-optic link. For this purpose, fibre-optic transceiver components are needed.
After an earlier study, this work aimed at developing the transceivers up to EM (Engineering Model) maturity level. Two sub-contractors developed their versions with different technologies and a full environmental test campaign was performed.
Challenges
Main challenges are related to production processes: manufacturing of a hermetic package with a reliable optical fibre feed through and making efficient and reliable connections between opto-electronic components (VCSEL & photodiode) and the optical fibre. Also, selection of the fibre cable and connector are found to be important wrt. reliability of the device.
Another area of challenge is a reliable mounting of the modules on printed circuit boards taking into account the high frequencies.
Plan
Specific tasks performed in this project are the following:
- Review of requirements and architectural trade-offs
- Detailed design, manufacture and testing of fibre-optic transceivers
- Documentation of manufacturing processes
Current Status
Completed at October, 2013.
