Radio Frequency and Optical Communication Link Trade Studies Between Earth, Deep Space Gateway and Lunar Surface

Efficient and accurate communication are two of the most important aspects in a communications system. Hence, it was pertinent that radio frequency (RF) and optical link budget analyses were understood inside and out by the two young careerists when performing this study. This report covers RF and optical trade studies performed between Earth, Deep Space Gateway (DSG), Orion, and the Moon’s lunar surface. Using criteria provided by NASA Headquarters, the links were statically driven allowing review of the systems without bandwidth limitations, spectrum allocations, and hardware implementations. This provided the chance to review the efficiency of the links as technology improves throughout the decades. A few select RF links were analyzed using repeaters while select optical links were compared with coded and uncoded modulation schemes. The results from these analyses again prove the tradeoff theories in communications systems.