ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the ground terminal and provides examples from successful flight links. Topics covered include ground-station requirements including the terminal site and telescope, link budget effects and methods to mitigate atmospheric turbulence effects with telescope and uplink beam, ground-station instrumentation, optical ground station design examples, laser beam pointing-acquisition and tracking for the ground station, uplink beam formations and transmitter configurations with single and multiple uplink beams, performance prediction models for laser beam propagation through atmospheric turbulence, atmospheric characterization instruments for the ground station, downlink and uplink statistical results and comparative analysis with theoretical predictions.
