Satellite payloads with optical interconnects: Solving the bandwidth bottleneck in space

We present the results of a study to assess the viability of optical datacommunication solutions to alleviate the demands regarding power consumption and aggregate bandwidth imposed on future satellite communication payloads. Optimization of the satellite real-estate usage push payload designers towards very large capacity, high computational and flexible, transparent digital solutions, handling a total internal digital througput in excess of 1 Tb/s to cope with the increasing bandwidth demand of future broadband communication services