Radio science from an optical communications signal

NASA is currently developing the capability to deploy deep space optical communications links. This creates the opportunity to utilize the optical link to obtain range, Doppler, and signal intensity estimates. These may, in turn, be used to complement or extend the capabilities of current radio science. In this paper we illustrate the achievable parameter estimation errors in estimating range, Doppler, and received signal intensity of a one-way non-coherent optical link. We provide a joint estimation algorithm with performance close to the Cram`er-Rao bound. We draw comparisons to range estimates based on a coherent radio frequency signal, illustrating that large gains in either precision or observation time are possible with an optical link.