THE CUBESAT LASER INFRARED CROSSLINK MISSION WILL IMPROVE CROSSLINK COMMUNICATION DATA RATES FOR CUBESATS TO ENABLE NASA MISSIONS. FOR SIMPLE TASKS SUCH AS SCHEDULE COORDINATION OR COMMAND HANDLING HIGH RATE CROSSLINKS ARE GENERALLY NOT NEEDED. HOWEVER HIGH RATE CROSSLINKS ARE NEEDED WHEN NODES MUST RAPIDLY EXCHANGE OR ROUTE SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF DATA TO OTHER SATELLITES OR TO THE GROUND. RAPID EXCHANGE OF OBSERVATIONAL DATA COULD ENABLE A NEW OPERATIONAL PARADIGM SUCH AS ONBOARD IMAGE PROCESSING THAT FUSES IMAGES FROM MULTIPLE SPACECRAFT TO LOOK FOR SPECIFIC INDICATORS WITH THE ABILITY FOR INDIVIDUAL NODES TO AUTONOMOUSLY AND RAPIDLY TAKE ACTION BASED ON THE RESULT. IT IS DIFFICULT TO ACHIEVE HIGH RATE CROSSLINKS ON SMALL PLATFORMS SUCH AS CUBESATS WITH RADIO FREQUENCY (RF) TECHNOLOGY DUE TO THE SEVERE CONSTRAINTS ON SIZE WEIGHT AND POWER (SWAP). TYPICAL CUBESAT HIGH RATE LINKS ARE DOWNLINKS AND INVOLVE GROUND STATIONS WITH SIGNIFICANT APERTURES TO PROVIDE THE NECESSARY GAIN TO CLOSE A LINK THAT IS>1 MBPS. FOR EXAMPLE THE WALLOPS UHF ANTENNA 'DISH' USED WITH THE CADET RADIO IS 18 METERS IN DIAMETER. LOW EARTH ORBIT (LEO) DOWNLINK DISTANCES RANGE FROM 400 KM (OVERHEAD) TO OVER 1200 KM (LOWER ELEVATIONS). INTERSATELLITE CROSSLINKS MAY EXCEED DISTANCES OF>2000 KM. IT IS DIFFICULT TO FIT RF TECHNOLOGIES (DEPLOYABLES PHASED ARRAYS) ON 3U CUBESATS WITH HIGH ENOUGH GAIN TO CLOSE>2000 KM CROSSLINKS AT>10 MBPS WITHOUT USING ALL OR MOST OF THE SWAP AVAILABLE. TERRESTRIAL FIBER OPTIC SYSTEMS HAVE MATURE LASERCOM TECHNOLOGY WHICH WE WILL TRANSITION TO FREE SPACE LINKS LEVERAGING COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE (COTS) COMPONENTS SO THAT CUBESATS CAN BENEFIT FROM LASERCOM#S SWAP ADVANTAGES. THERE ARE SEVERAL LASERCOM IMPLEMENTATIONS IN THE NEAR-INFRARED ITU-C BAND (1550 NM); SOME ARE HIGHER COST AND COMPLEXITY BUT WITH HIGHER DATA RATES SUCH AS COHERENT LASERCOM. THERE ARE ALSO LOWER COST AND COMPLEXITY SOLUTIONS SUCH AS DIRECT-DETECT LASERCOM THAT CAN SCALE TO GBPS RATES AND TO LONGER RANGES TO MEET THE NEEDS OF FUTURE SCOUTING PROBE AND PLANETARY EXPLORATION MISSION ARCHITECTURES. THE GOAL OF THIS PROPOSAL IS THE DEVELOPMENT OF A LOW-COST AND LOW-COMPLEXITY CUBESAT LASERCOM INTERSATELLITE LINK TRANSCEIVER THAT OPENS LASERCOM UP TO THE LOWER-BUDGET PART OF THE CUBESAT MARKET. WE WILL BUILD TWO<1.5 U FULL DUPLEX TRANSCEIVERS WITH FINE POINTING CAPABILITY THAT OPERATE AT>20 MBPS OVER>1000 KM CROSSLINKS USING<15 W WHEN TRANSMITTING. MIT WILL PARTNER WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA TO TACKLE KEY CHALLENGES IN IMPLEMENTING LASERCOM ON CUBESATS. TOGETHER MIT AND UF WILL DELIVER TWO TRANSCEIVERS FOR NASA AMES TO PERFORM ENVIRONMENTAL TESTING AND INTEGRATION INTO 3U CUBESATS FOR RAPID ON- ORBIT DEMONSTRATION. THE KEY CHALLENGES INCLUDE (I) AUGMENTATION OF CUBESAT BODY-POINTING WITH A PRECISION POINTING SYSTEM (II) DEVELOPING TRANSCEIVER ELECTRONICS THAT HAVE FLEXIBILITY IN DEFINING WAVEFORMS BECAUSE LASERCOM STANDARDS WHILE IN PROGRESS HAVE NOT YET BEEN COMPLETED OR WIDELY ADOPTED AND (III) INCORPORATING PRECISE ONBOARD TIMING AND SYNCHRONIZATION IN THE LASERCOM CROSSLINK. CLICK WILL PROVIDE HARDWARE TOWARD AN ON-ORBIT DEMONSTRATION OF THIS TECHNOLOGY FROM WHICH WE CAN LEARN AND APPLY OUR FINDINGS TO THE OPERATIONAL MISSIONS TO FOLLOW. MIT WILL LEVERAGE PREVIOUS AND ONGOING WORK IN CUBESAT LASERCOM FOR THE NANOSATELLITE OPTICAL DOWNLINK EXPERIMENT (NODE) AND ONGOING CROSSLINK TERMINAL AND GROUND STATION DEVELOPMENT. THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA WILL LEVERAGE A CURRENTLY-FUNDED NASA PROJECT THE MINIATURE OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS TRANSCEIVER (MOCT) AND THE CUBESAT HANDLING OF MULTISYSTEM PRECISION TIME TRANSFER (CHOMPTT) MISSION MAKING MODIFICATIONS FOR INTEGRATION WITH THE MIT FINE POINTING OPTICAL AND MECHANICAL SYSTEMS. THIS WORK COMPLEMENTS PREVIOUS AND ONGOING INVESTMENTS BY NASA AND MIT AND EXTENDS THEM TO ACHIEVE THE GOAL OF HIGH RATE LOW-COST 3U CUBESAT CROSSLINK CAPABILITY.