The Future of Optical Communication Technology in Space. 

The past decade saw a boom in optical communication technologies used in the space industry. Current and future areas such as quantum cryptography, fast links to LEO satellites and deep space probes, autonomous driving and piloting and future Moon and Mars missions require significantly faster data rates at lower cost. Optical communications will benefit these and other applications with improved data rates, more secure links and reduced weight and power requirements. Besides well-known strengths optical communications in space pose unique challenges like dependency on weather factors in space-to-Earth links.

I'm going to talk about recent innovations in the space optical communication technology ("fiber in space") and interesting possibilities it could open in the coming decades.

Alexey Samokhin

Alexey Samokhin currently works in the software development industry as a product development manager in Sydney and holds PhD degree in applied mathematics. He presented his PhD thesis at Moscow Institute of Control Sciences of Russian Academy of Sciences in 2006.