Received-Power Fluctuation Analysis for LEO Satellite-to-Ground Laser Links

In this paper, the received-power fluctuations downlink data from two different low Earth orbit satellite experiments are analyzed. The first set of data was gathered from the Optical Inter-orbit Communications Engineering Test Satellite project. The data from the Small Optical TrAnsponder were gathered for two different laser transmitters with different parameters. The measured scintillation indices and their relation to the elevation angle are shown and the increasing number of higher scintillation index values at high elevation angles is discussed in terms of azimuth-axis slew rate and tracking and pointing errors. Furthermore, the received-power fluctuation histograms were fitted to a few theoretical probability density functions looking for the best fit to describe the satellite-to-ground link performance.