Atmospheric limitations to the pointing performance of a ground-based satellite antenna are analyzed in terms of power loss relative to perfect pointing. The antenna under consideration employs an open-loop tracking technique for pointing to a satellite with known position. A model is set up for the analysis to account for the statistical effect of atmospheric refraction of waves on the pointing performance of the ground antenna. An analytic result is obtained for prediction of the pointing performance. Measured atmospheric refraction data are incorporated into the model to demonstrate the atmospheric limitations to the highest antenna gain permissible within a specified pointing loss. © American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., 1979, All rights reserved.