Interplanetary links (IPL) serve as crucial enablers for space exploration, facilitating secure and adaptable space missions. An integrated IPL with inter-satellite communication (IP-ISL) establishes a unified deep space network, expanding coverage and reducing atmospheric losses. The challenges, including irregularities in charged density, hardware impairments, and hidden celestial body brightness are analyzed with a reflectarray-based IP-ISL between Earth and Moon orbiters. It is observed that 10−8 order severe hardware impairments with intense solar plasma density drops an ideal system's spectral efficiency (SE) from ∼38(bit/s)/Hz down to 0(bit/s)/Hz. An ideal full angle of arrival fluctuation recovery with full steering range achieves ∼20(bit/s)/Hz gain and a limited beamsteering with a numerical reflectarray design achieves at least ∼1(bit/s)/Hz gain in severe hardware impairment cases.
@article{arxiv.2405.00887,
title = {On the Role of Reflectarrays for Interplanetary Links},
author = {Eray Guven and Pablo Camacho and Elham Baladi and Gunes Karabulut Kurt},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.00887},
year = {2024}
}