Optical inter-satellite and feeder links

Big data is shaping today's live in many aspects, terrestrial as well as celestial. High data rates are essential for Earth Observation satellites and pre-requisite for High Throughput Satellites and Constellations with broadband data services. Optical communication offers high capacity data transmission for satellites and is available and already commercially applied. Optical feeder links will be an ideal service for high throughput geostationary satellites. While the bandwidth, frequency access and narrow beam are a clear advantage over RF uplinks, atmospheric disturbances are the key challenge. The characterization of the optical channel in the uplink is therefore essential for developing optimized coding and modulation schemes and fade mitigation strategies. Understanding the uplink intensity dynamics is essential to derive specialized acquisition and tracking strategies for the space segment.