  To expand frontiers and achieve measurable progress, instruments such as
hyperspectral imagers are increased in resolution, field of view, and spectral
resolution and range, leading to dramatically higher data volumes.
Increasingly, data need to be returned from greater distances, ranging from the
Sun-earth L1/ L2 points at 1.5 million km, to L4/L5 halo orbits at 1 AU, to
several AU in the case of planetary probes. Optical communications can
significantly reduce resource competition, requiring significantly fewer passes
per day and/or shorter overall passes, and thereby enable far greater,
transformative science return from individual missions and the capacity to
support multiple such missions within a smaller ground network. Optical
communications also provides superior performance and increased ranges for
Inter-satellite Links (ISL) from 2,000 to 10,000 km for Swarms and DSMs.
Lastly, the only way to guarantee timely space weather warnings (with a target
of 15 minutes latency) is through space relays in MEO or GEO orbits, a strategy
which also includes optical communications.
