Pointing error of transmitter and atmospheric turbulence cause signal fading for satellitetoground laser communication, and the antifading characteristics of distributed groundbased array receiver with optical preamplifiers are analyzed. It is shown that the distributed array receiver can decrease the influence of pointing error of transmitter, and the distance between the subapertures can be optimized according to the pointing error of transmitter and atmospheric turbulence. Compared with the conventional array receiver, optimal transmitting beam width decreases and transmitting power requirement is debased in the distributed array receiver. Another important advantage of distributed array is when the actual rms pointing error is larger than the designed value, the power penalty can be reduced greatly by changing the distance between the subapertures.