Analysis of telescope arrays for deep space optical communications

It has been very well established in the literature that the cost of a large aperture telescope grows exponentially as a function of its diameter. On Earth, large aperture telescopes in excess of 10m also have the disadvantage of undergoing gravitational and other environmental effects. Array configurations, instead, may be the potential alternatives when large aperture telescopes are considered for ground-based and space-based deep space applications. Because of their parallel architecture, telescope arrays have noticeable advantages over single monolithic large aperture telescopes in terms of cost, weight, reliability, scalability, and modularity. In this paper, the design concept and the analysis of a typical telescope array for deep space optical communication is provided and its performance is compared with that of a typical monolithic telescope