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An off-axis optical design is proposed as a possible optical bench setup for the next generation gravity and
geodesy mission. In place of the triple mirror assembly of the GRACE Follow on mission, a more compact, light
weight new layout of an off-axis optical design which adopts an assembly of mirrors and lens systems is studied.
The lens systems serve on one hand to achieve laser retro-reflection between two satellites and on the other hand,
to optimize the receiving, local, and transmitting beam parameters. The receiving (RX) and transmitting (TX)
beam are enforced to be anti-parallel by means of a control loop with the differential wavefront sensing (DWS)
signals as controller. A simulation model is then built using IfoCAD to verify the feasibility of the optical design.
Preliminary simulation results indicate that, with the proposed optical layout, the tilt to length coupling noises
originated both locally and that from attitude jitter of spacecrafts are efficiently suppressed. Thermal stability of the optical bench is also briefly considered. | 
