Deep-Space Optical Communication Link Engineering: Sensitivity Analysis

As in other facets of society, the data rate requirements of science and exploration missions in deep space are ever-increasing, mostly due to the number and refinement of science instruments onboard the spacecraft. For repatriating the increased data back to Earth, the communication link is the bottleneck. To tackle this issue for future missions, space agencies in the frame of Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems finalized recently a deep-space optical specification implementing serially concatenated pulse position modulation signaling. Fully based on this standard, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive tool assessing the sensitivity of the deep-space optical link on multiple factors. It also provides a practical method to avoid lengthy BER evaluations that would be otherwise required.