Development concept of inter-satellite laser communication

The relevance of this research work is dictated, among other things, by the need to ensure higher requirements for the accuracy characteristics of the navigation field created by spacecraft of the GLONASS navigation system in order to meet the high requirements for the accuracy characteristics of navigation determinations over long intervals of autonomous operation of spacecraft currently put forward by consumers. The presented concept of development uses the latest achievements of laser and radio engineering both to increase the throughput, noise immunity of transmitting information, as well as to reduce the mass and power consumption of onboard equipment, and to conduct inter-satellite range measurements and synchronization of onboard time scales of spacecraft navigation systems, including and for linking the system time scale of space navigation systems (or the group orbital time scale) to the time scale of the State standard of time and frequency. Ensuring the accurate operation of the laser guidance system in space is considered one of the critically important tasks, since its full-scale tests on Earth are almost impossible. Key experimental and also experimental works are analyzed according to the problems of constructing optical links of inter-satellite communication.