Performance Degradation of Typical 1550 nm Optical Intersatellite Communication Systems in Space Ionizing Radiation Environment

Space ionizing radiation impact on the on-orbit performance of 1550 nm on off keying, differential phase shift keying, and homodyne binary phase shift keying (BPSK) based optical intersatellite communication systems is studied in this paper. Essential optoelectronic devices involved in optical communication systems were irradiated by Co
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gamma ray to a total dose of 30 krad and the related ionizing radiation damage factors are obtained according to theoretical analyses. On this basis, ionizing radiation induced communication terminal degradation and system performance degradation are simulated. Subsequently, the ionizing radiation environment of four typical orbits is analyzed and the on-orbit performances of different intersatellite communication links are further obtained and discussed. The result shows the necessity of enhancing radiation protection of EDFAs, optical transmitters, and terminals located on GEO and HEO satellites, and it also shows the superiority of homodyne BPSK scheme against space ionizing radiation environment.