Ground Station Network Optimization for Space-to-Ground Optical Communication Links

Abstract

Space-to-ground optical data links enable higher data rates, require less electrical power, and allow more compact system designs than their corresponding RF counterparts. They may be applied to e.g. downlink earth observation data from low Earth orbit satellites, or as so-called feeder links for data transmission to geostationary telecommunication or multimedia satellites. However, optical space-to-ground links suffer from limited availability due to cloud blockage. The application of optical ground station (OGS) diversity and thus a network of OGS is required to overcome this limitation.