Past Projects and heritage

GA Synopta has long-standing experience in delivering adaptive optics systems for use in optical satellite-to-ground communications, including:

Cassegrain Adaptive Receive Optics (CARO), 1050-1080 nm and 1530-1570 nm; available at the ESA Optical Ground Station (Fig. 1) [1];
Quantum Communication Adaptive Optics (QCAO) Box, 670-1000 nm, delivered to the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI), Vienna, Austria (Fig. 2) [2];
Transportable Adaptive Optics Ground Station (T-AOGS), 1064 nm, owned by DLR and operated by TESAT Spacecom (Fig. 3) [3];
Acquisition and Tracking Subsystem, technology testbed for space debris mitigation, delivered to ESA’s IZN-1 laser ranging station, Tenerife, Spain (Fig. 4) [4].
Alpha-Up and Down Experiment (AUDE) Breadboard, world-first demonstration of improved uplink performance to GEO by pre-compensating the uplink beam’s wavefront from downlink wavefront measurements; bi-directional (1064 / 1075 nm), without laser guide star; available at the ESA Optical Ground Station [5, 6];

Fig. 1 - Cassegrain Adaptive Receive Optics Box at the
1 m telescope of the ESA OGS — Fig. 1 - Cassegrain Adaptive Receive Optics Box at the 1 m telescope of the ESA OGS

Fig. 2 - Quantum Communications Adaptive Optics Box (Photo © Fraunhofer IOF)

Fig. 3 - Transportable Adaptive Optics Ground Station.

Fig. 4 - Acquisition and Tracking Subsystem at ESA IZN-1.

References:
[1] E. Fischer, K. Kudielka, T. Berkefeld, et al. "Adaptive optics upgrades for laser communications to the
     ESA optical ground station", Proc. SPIE 11852, International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2020,
     118522A (11 Jun 2021); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2599370
[2] E. Fischer, K. Kudielka, A. Brady, et al. "Modular adaptive optics solution for a QKD receiver on a fork
     mount telescope system", Proc. SPIE 11852, International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2020,
     118520X (11 Jun 2021); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2599216
[3] E. Fischer, Th. Berkefeld, Mikael Feriencik, et al. "Use of adaptive optics in ground stations for high data
     rate satellite-to-ground links", Proc. SPIE 10562, International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO
     2016, 105623L (25 Sept 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2296200
[4] Di Mira, Andrea & Fischer, Edgar & Kudielka, Klaus & Nussbaum, Max & Klodt, Lukas & Heese,
  Clemens. (2023). “Optical Communication with the IZN-1 Robotic Optical Ground Station”. 2022 9th
    International Workshop on Tracking, Telemetry and Command Systems for Space Applications (TT&C).
    ESA/ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands.
[5] Klaus Kudielka, Edgar Fischer, Thomas Berkefeld, Christoph Fischer, Monika Neuweiler, et al..
     Successful first optical feeder link demonstration between a ground station and a GEO satellite applying
     adaptive optics pre-compensation ("Alpha-Up"). COAT2023, Mar 2023, Durham, United Kingdom.
     ⟨10.34693/COAT2023-014⟩. ⟨hal-04605018⟩
[6] Aaron Buckner, Klaus Kudielka, Edgar Fischer, et al. "Up- and down- link atmospheric compensation
     experiment with Alphasat: design and initial results", Proc. SPIE 13355, Free-Space Laser
     Communications XXXVII, 1335516 (19 Mar 2025); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3041292