Background noise limitations on optical intersatellite links for data relay applications

The wide bandwidth offered by optics and advanced multiplication techniques, may increase the available capacity of the space communication channel. At optical frequencies, the background noise due to Sun irradiation may become limitative and bring the system out of service. It is worth to evaluate the impact this kind of noise has on a communication system based on optical technology. In particular different architecture may be affected by different noise levels. Thus, the most suitable scenario for optical intersatellite links can be defined in terms of minimum background noise. Two scenarios will be compared. The first one is based on LEO-GEO optical link, the second one on GEOGEO optical link. In both cases data are collected from a formation flying satellite cluster, whose dasiamotherpsila establish a communication link with a geostationary satellite. The high amount of data requires wide capacity link to reduce the on board hard memory dimension and reduce the communication duration.