Remember that the only reason a laser works for this kind of link is that it is very highly collimated. The light scattering from the receiving satellite is dif

Remember that the only reason a laser works for this kind of link is that it is very highly collimated. The light scattering from the receiving satellite is diffuse so the intensity will go down very quickly with distance. It might be observable with a suitably large telescope, but I doubt it would be practical.