Abstract: Spaceborne wind lidar is considered to be the best means of wind field observation due to its real-time, high-precision and high resolution. Researches on spaceborne Doppler wind lidar have been actively carried out in China. The direct detection receiver of Doppler wind lidar developed for the satellite orbit with an altitude of 400 km is introduced. The receiver employs the dual Fabry-Perot etalons as the discriminating frequency unit and its parameters are specially designed for the spaceborne application. The main optical elements of the receiver are connected by molecular force and reversely inserted into the fillister of the receiver shell. The structure of the receiver is stable, reliable and highly integrated with the size of 450 mm×300 mm×80 mm, adapting to the spaceborne requirements of stability and small scale. The Fabry-Perot etalon transmission curves are obtained by tuning the wavelength of laser and the parameters of transmission curves are tested and analyzed. The wind measurement performance of the optical receiver is simulated according to the actual measured parameters. The simulation results show that the maximum wind velocity error is 2.94 m/s at the height of 30 km. Then the influence of the receiver bandwidth on measurement accuracy is further analyzed. The analysis results show that when the bandwidth deviation is 0.43 pm, the measurement error increment of 1m/s is caused.