The analytical expression of output si g nal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for inter-satellite microwave photonic links with an optical pre-amplifier is derived considering t he signal fade caused by both transmitter′s and receiver′s pointing errors,and an optimized m odel for the average SNR is established.With the desired 〖WT BX 〗SNR and the pointing errors of transmitter and receiver,the direct current (DC) bias phase shift of Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZ M) can be optimized so as to minimize the output power of laser diode (LD),and the effects of the opti cal pre-amplifier parameters on the minimum output power of LD and optimal DC bias phase shift are also examined. According to the numerical results,the pre-amplifier noise figure determines th e minimum output power of LD needed to achieve the desired SNR.The requir ed minimum output power of LD to maintain the SNR of 15.56dB increases by 6.73dB for an RMS pointing jitter of 0.4μrad when doubling the pre-amplifier noise figure.In contrast,the pre-amplifier noise figure has little influence on the o ptimal DC bias phase shift,doubling the pre-amplifier noise figure,resulting in no more than 0.003π increase in the optimum DC bias phase shift.