Single photon time transfer link model for GNSS satellites

The importance of optical time transfer serving as a complement to traditional microwave links, has been attested for GNSSes and for scientific missions. Single photon time transfer (SPTT) is a process, allowing to compare (subtract) time readings of two distant clocks. Such a comparison may be then used to synchronize less accurate clock to a better reference, to perform clock characterization and calibration, to calculate mean time out of ensemble of several clocks, displaced in space. The single-photon time transfer is well established in field of space geodesy, being supported by passive retro-reflectors within space segment of five known GNSSes. A truly two-way, active terminals work aboard of Jason-2 (T2L2) - multiphoton operation, GNSS Beidou (Compass) - SPTT, and are going to be launched within recent ACES project (ELT) - SPTT, and GNSS GLONASS – multiphoton operation. However, there is still missing comprehensive theoretical model of two-way (using satellite receiver and retroreflector) SPTT link incorporating all crucial parameters of receiver (both ground and space segment receivers), transmitter, atmosphere effects on uplink and downlink path, influence of retroreflector. The input to calculation of SPTT link performance will be among others: link budget (distance, power, apertures, beam divergence, attenuation, scattering), propagating medium (atmosphere scintillation, beam wander, etc.), mutual Tx/Rx velocity, wavelength. The SPTT model will be evaluated without the properties of real components. These will be added in the further development. The ground-to-space SPTT link performance of typical scenarios are modeled. This work is a part of the ESA study “Comparison of optical time-transfer links.”