The effect of temperature characteristic variation due to thermal control design on the antenna of satellite laser communication terminals

Cassegrain telescopes are widely used as optical antenna in satellite laser communication terminals, which are assembled outside the satellite when operating in orbit. The thermal environment in space will result in temperature variation and thermal deformation of the telescopes. Then tracking-pointing performance and communication performance will be affected consequently. So, thermal control design of telescope must be taken to make the temperature distribution vary in a certain range, which is permitted to assure the performance and stability of optics. For laser communication terminals in satellite of geosychronous Earth orbit, the effects on figure error of telescope due to three kinds of heating type of thermal control system are analyzed in this paper. It is shown that radial heating type brings the smallest figure error to telescope, followed by circumferentially-equal-area heating type. circumferentially-equal-radius heating type brings the biggest error of all. The result of this paper will bring certain reference to the thermal control design of telescopes in laser communication terminals on satellites in orbit.