Objectives and Applications
The overall objective is to demonstrate and validate the operation of SOTA (Small Optical TrAnsponder), a laser communication system in space. The goal is to experiment with QKD (Quantum Key Distribution) techniques and to foster the application free-space optical communications (higher data rates than RF communications) in microsatellites and eventually in nanosatellites.
Full Name
Space Optical Communications Research Advanced Technology Satellite
Mission Status
Mission complete
Mission Agencies
NICT
Launch Date
24 May 2014
Mission Links
EOL Date
24 May 2019
Orbit Type
Sun-synchronous
Orbit Period
97.4 minutes
Orbit Sense
Orbit Inclination
97.9 deg
Orbit Altitude
628 km
Orbit Longitude
NORAD Catalog #
International Designator
No IDN OpenSearch datasets found.