Issues in Ground to Deep Space Optical Communication

Deep space communication presents challenging environment for data communication such as long distance, very low signal-to-noise ratio, and high signal propagation delays and so on. The performance of free space optical (FSO) communication system is degraded due to distortion (scintillation and tilt) of the beam as it propagates through the turbulent atmosphere. In this paper, several issues are discussed that affects the working of ground to deep space FSO system. Also, the conventional schemes that are used for atmospheric tilt correction as signal propagates through long distance are discussed. Strategies that can overcome the problem of propagation through atmosphere are described.