Improvement of Interference Immunity of Deep Space Communication Systems Exposed to Interference from Stationary Plasma Thrusters

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the applicability and quantify potential efficiency of using blind signal separation algorithms to counter interference from stationary plasma thrusters. For various values of interference-to-signal ratio and of the average interference pulse-to-pause ratio, the bit error rate dependence on the signal-to-noise bit ratio is determined on the basis of the developed simulation model of the command-programming data transmission channel of deep-space communication system with the modulation-code scheme based on the GMSK-signal (Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying) and the Reed–Solomon code (255,223). The obtained results allow us to assess quantitatively the potential efficiency of using the SOBI algorithm of blind signal separation in the channels with GMSK-signal under the influence of emission from stationary plasma thrusters and thermal noises of the receiving path.