  Free-space optical communication is becoming a mature technology that has
been demonstrated in space a number of times in the last few years. The
Japanese National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT)
has carried out some of the most-significant in-orbit demonstrations over the
last three decades. However, this technology has not reached a wide commercial
adoption yet. For this reason, NICT is currently working towards the
development of a miniaturized laser-communication terminal that can be
installed in very-small satellites, while also compatible with a variety of
other different platforms, meeting a wide span of bandwidth requirements. The
strategy adopted in this design has been to create a versatile lasercom
terminal that can operate in multiple scenarios and platforms without the need
of extensive customization. This manuscript describes the current efforts in
NICT towards the development of this terminal, and it shows the prototype that
has been already developed for the preliminary tests, which are described as
well. These tests will include the performance verification using drones first
with the goal of installing the prototype on High-Altitude Platform Systems
(HAPS) to carry out communication links between HAPS and ground, and later with
the Geostationary (GEO) orbit, covering this way a wide range of operating
conditions. For these tests, in the former case the counter terminal is a
simple transmitter in the case of the drone, and a transportable ground station
in the case of the HAPS; and in the latter case the counter terminal is the GEO
satellite ETS-IX, foreseen to be launched by NICT in 2023.
