THE GOAL OF THIS PROPOSAL IS TO PERFORM EARLY STAGE RESEARCH ON AN INNOVATIVE HYBRID INTEGRATED PHOTONICS PLATFORM FOR ADAPTIVE DISCRETE MULTI CARRIER OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS IN A SPACE BASED FREE SPACE OPTICAL ENVIRONMENT. WE WILL DEVELOP THE TECHNOLOGY FOR SILICON PHOTONIC TRANSCEIVER COMPONENTS THAT WILL COMPRISE A COHERENT LASER OPTICAL COMMUNICATION AND OR RELAY NETWORK IN NEAR EARTH SPACE AT WAVELENGTHS NEAR 1550 NM FOR USE ON A SATELLITE PLATFORM. OUR PROPOSED TRANSCEIVER ARCHITECTURE OFFERS SCALABLE VERY HIGH BIT RATE COMMUNICATIONS WITH ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE REDUCTIONS IN SIZE WEIGHT AND ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND IMPROVEMENTS ON LINK PERFORMANCE AND BANDWIDTH COMPARED TO BOTH RF COMMUNICATIONS AND EXISTING OPTICAL TECHNOLOGIES. OUR TECHNICAL APPROACH INVOLVES AN INNOVATIVE DESIGN TO THE COMPONENTS FABRICATION OF INTEGRATED CHIPSETS USING A SILICON FOUNDRY PROCESS AND TESTING AT THE BREADBOARD LEVEL IN SUPPORT OF FUTURE MONOLITHIC AND HETEROGENEOUS INTEGRATION.