Adaptive optics upgrades for laser communications to the ESA optical ground station

Over the past years, Synopta have successfully applied adaptive optics (AO) in optical ground stations to enhance the capabilities in satellite-to-ground laser communication links. In this paper, we present the outcome of an upgrade activity to the ESA Optical Ground Station (ESA OGS). The activities comprise the design, fabrication and site acceptance test results of the Cassegrain Adaptive Receiver Optics (“CARO”) add-on instrument to the 1 m telescope of the ESA OGS. Additionally, we present a baseline design concept for the future use of a bi-directional adaptive optics system in the Coudé path of the ESA OGS, expected performance characteristics for a selected uplink application.