Towards the Construction of Australia's Quantum Optical Ground Station

The ACT has the potential to capture the first Australian node of an expanding global optical communications network. This proposal is to establish an Australian first Optical Ground Station (OGS) dedicated to laser communications to space. This will enable the ACT to become the Australian hub for optical communications research while establishing new commercial opportunities by attracting national and international partners to utilise the facility for downlink from space-based assets. The technologies to be developed havethe potential to offer license free and secure high-bandwidth data transmission to andfrom space.