1

Introduction

Two developments in the nineteenth and twentieth century changed the way people
lived: the automobile and telecommunications. Prior to the widespread availability of
personal automobiles, individuals had to travel on foot, by bicycle, or on horseback.
Trains provided faster travel between cities, but most people’s lives were centered on
their home town and immediate surroundings. A journey of 100 miles was a major expe-
dition for most people, and the easy mobility that we all take for granted in the twenty-
first century was unknown. Before the telegraph and telephone came into widespread
use, all communication was face to face, or in writing. If you wanted to talk to some-
one, you had to travel to meet with that person, and travel was slow and arduous. If you
wanted to send information, it had to be written down and the papers hand-carried to
their destination.
Telecommunication systems have now made it possible to communicate with virtually
anyone at any time. Early telegraph and telephone systems used copper wire to carry
signals over the earth’s surface and across oceans, and high frequency (HF) radio made
possible intercontinental telephone links.
The development and installation of optical fibers and optical transmission tech-
niques has greatly increased the capacity of terrestrial and oceanic links. Artificial earth
satellites have been used in communications systems for more than 50 years and have
become an essential part of the world’s telecommunications infrastructure. Satellites
allow people to receive hundreds of television channels in their homes, either by receiv-
ing direct broadcast satellite television signals, or via cable TV from a satellite distri-
bution center. Virtually all cable TV systems collect their signals from satellites that
distribute television programming nationwide. Access to the internet via satellite from
areas that are not served by cable is also available, providing many people in rural areas
with much faster service than can be achieved over telephone lines.

1.1 Background
The origins of satellite communications can be traced to an article written by Arthur
C. Clarke in the British radio magazine Wireless World in 1945 (Clarke 1945). At the
time, Clarke was serving in the British Royal Air Force, working on precision approach
radar systems that could guide World War II aircraft to a safe landing when the airport
was fogged in. He was interested in long distance radio communication and was among
the first to propose a practical way to communicate using satellites. He later became

Satellite Communications, Third Edition. Timothy Pratt and Jeremy Allnutt.

© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2020 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
2 1 Introduction

famous as the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and other science fiction books (Clarke
1968). In 1945, HF radio was the only available method for radio communication over
transcontinental distances, and it was not at all reliable. Sun spots and ionospheric
disturbances could disrupt HF radio links for days at a time. Telegraph cables had been
laid across the oceans as early as the mid-1800s, but cables capable of carrying voice
signals across the Atlantic did not begin service until 1953. Clarke suggested that a
radio relay satellite in an equatorial orbit with a period of one sidereal day would remain
stationary with respect to the earth’s surface and make possible long distance radio
links. (A sidereal day is the time it takes for the earth to make one complete revolution
on its axis. It is 3 minutes 55.91 seconds shorter than a clock day of 24 hours, accounting
for the progress of the earth around the sun in 365 days, which adds one additional
revolution.)
Clarke’s Wireless World paper is available on the internet and makes fascinating read-
ing (Clarke 1945). Solar arrays had not been developed in 1945, so Clarke proposed a
solar collector driving a steam engine to generate electrical power; a manned space sta-
tion was needed to run the complicated systems. In most other respects, Clarke accu-
rately predicted the development of geostationary earth orbit (GEO) satellites for direct
broadcast television and data communications using transmitter powers much lower
than the kilowatt levels of terrestrial broadcasting, and small parabolic mirrors (dishes)
for receiving terminals.
At the time Clarke wrote his paper there were no satellites in orbit nor rockets pow-
erful enough to launch them. But his ideas for what we now know as a geostationary
satellite system were not science fiction, as the launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik in
1957 and subsequent GEO satellites was to prove. In 1965 the first geostationary com-
munications satellite, Early Bird, began to provide telephone service across the Atlantic
Ocean, fulfilling Clarke’s vision of 20 years earlier. Intelsat launched a series of satel-
lites between 1967 and 1969 that provided coverage of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian
ocean regions, making worldwide coverage by GEO satellite possible, just in time for the
Apollo 11 mission that first sent humans to the moon.
Satellite communication systems were originally developed to provide long distance
telephone service. In the late 1960s, launch vehicles had been developed that could place
a 500 kg satellite in geostationary earth orbit, with a capacity of 5000 telephone circuits,
marking the start of an era of expansion for telecommunication satellites. Geostation-
ary satellites were soon carrying transoceanic and transcontinental telephone calls. For
the first time, live television links could be established across the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans to carry news and sporting events. From its early beginnings in the 1960s, rev-
enue earned from satellite communication systems has increased at an average of about
5% every year, and was valued at US$260B in 2016. Growth was rapid in the early 2000s,
falling to 2% by 2016 (SIA 2017).
By year 2016, there were a total of 1459 active satellites in orbit with over 500 GEO
communication satellites serving every part of the globe. Although television accounts
for much of the traffic carried by these satellites, international and regional telephony,
data transmission, and internet access are also important. In the populated parts of the
world, the geostationary orbit is filled with satellites every two or three degrees, oper-
ating in almost every available frequency band. The global positioning system (GPS)
uses 24 satellites in medium earth orbit (MEO) to provide worldwide navigation data
for automobiles, ships, and aircraft. The worldwide revenue from Global Navigation
Satellite Systems (GNSS) installations, mainly in automobiles, was US$74B in 2016
(SIA 2017).
 1.1 Background 3

Earth observation
1459 satellites 19%

Surveillance
6%

GNSS
7%

Meteorological
2%

Communications Other
49% 17%

Figure 1.1 Distribution of satellites in orbit in 2016 by application. More than 500 satellites were in
geostationary orbit. Communications includes DBS-TV, civil, and military links. Earth observation by
small satellites increased quickly between 2014 and 2017 with the introduction of cubesats. Source:
Adapted from data in (SIA 2017).

Figure 1.1 shows how the 1459 active satellites in orbit in 2016 were divided by appli-
cation. Direct broadcast satellite television (DBS-TV) and video distribution services
were the dominant uses of satellites, while navigation services made a major contribu-
tion. The large number of earth observation satellites were mainly cubesats.
Figure 1.2 shows the distribution of revenues generated by the worldwide satellite
industry, divided by application. As in Figure 1.1, DBS-TV and video distribution gen-
erate more than half the revenue.
GEO satellites have grown steadily in mass, size, lifetime, and cost over the years.
Some of the largest satellites launched to date are the KH and Lacrosse surveillance
satellites of the US National Reconnaissance Office weighing an estimated 13 600 kg
(30 000 lb) (KH-11_Kennen 2017). By 2000, commercial telecommunications satellites
weighing 6000 kg with lifetimes of 15 years were being launched into geostationary orbit
at a typical cost around US$125M for the satellite and launch. These costs did not change
greatly over the following 15 years, although larger satellites with much higher capacity,
and higher cost, have also been launched since 2011. The revenue earning capacity of
a GEO satellite costing US$125M in orbit must exceed US$20M per year for the ven-
ture to be profitable, and must compete with optical fibers in carrying voice, data, and
video signals. A single optical fiber can carry 10 Gbps at a single wavelength of light, and
100 Gbps by employing multiple wavelengths, a capacity similar to that of the largest
GEO satellites, and optical fibers are never laid singly but always in bundles. The latest
trans-Pacific optical fiber cable can transport 60 terabits per second using multiple opti-
cal fibers and optical wavelengths, equivalent to the capacity of 50 large GEO satellites
in 2018 (The Verge 2017). GEO satellites cannot compete with optical fibers for point
to point communications, but have the advantage of broadcasting to millions of receiv-
ing terminals simultaneously. Any place within the satellite coverage can be served by
simply installing an earth terminal. To do the same with a fiber optic link requires fiber
4 1 Introduction

100
DBS-TV
$98B
Annual revenue in billions of US dollars

GNSS
$85B
80

Global revenue = $260B

60

40 DBS-TV
$19B
Satellite radio Transponder leases Satellites Networks
$5B $11B $18B $10B
Launches
20 Broadband Services
$6B
$2B $6B

0
Consumer Fixed Satellites and Ground
services services launches equipment

Figure 1.2 Distribution of global revenue earned from all satellite activity in 2016. Direct broadcast
satellite television (DBS-TV) and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) dominate with US$183B in
revenue out of a total of US$261B. Source: Adapted from data in (SIA 2017).

to be laid. Fiber optic transmission systems dominate where there is a requirement for
high capacity point-to-point links; GEO satellites succeed best when broadcasting.

The high capacity of both optical fibers and satellites, and the steady move of telecom-
munications traffic from analog signals to digital has lowered the cost of long distance
telephone calls and increased enormously the number of circuits available. In 1960, prior
to the advent of satellite communications, the United States had 550 overseas telephone
circuits. Calls to Europe cost more than US$1.00 per minute at 1960 prices, and had to be
placed through an operator, with delays of many hours being common. By 2016, virtually
all international calls could be dialed by the end user, and rates to Europe had dropped to
below US$0.02 per minute. To put the reduction in the cost of an international telephone
call in perspective, we must remember that incomes have risen significantly over this
time period. In the 1950s, the average wage in the United States was US$2.10 per hour,
so the average worker would have had to work for 30 minutes to pay for a one minute
call to Europe. In 2017, the average wage in the United States was US$26.10 per hour, and
required less than 10 second’s earnings to pay for the same international call. The United
States now has hundreds of thousands of overseas telephone circuits, and video links
daily carry live news reports from all over the globe. Texts and emails can be sent over
the internet anywhere in the world for free. Telecommunications and computers low-
ered costs by a factor approaching 2000 between 1960 and 2010, something no other
sector of the economy has ever achieved. The electrical and computer engineers who
have made this possible rarely get the credit from the general public that they deserve.

GEO satellites have been supplemented by low and medium earth orbit satellites for
some applications. Low earth orbit (LEO) satellites can provide satellite telephone and
 1.2 A Brief History of Satellite Communications 5

data services over continents or the entire world, and are also used for earth imaging and
surveillance. The delay incurred in a telephone link via a LEO satellite is much lower than
with a GEO satellite, but because LEO satellites travel across the sky complicated handoff
procedures are needed to ensure continuous communication. The dominance of GEO
satellites for internet access by satellite will be challenged after 2020 as the proposed
12 000 LEO satellites operating in Ku-, Ka-, and V-band begin to provide worldwide
access to the internet.
The global positioning system uses 24 medium earth orbit satellites to broadcast sig-
nals to the entire earth’s surface. GPS, and Galileo, a similar European position location
system have revolutionized navigation by vehicles, ships and aircraft, and GPS receivers
have become a consumer product. Every cellular telephone has a GPS receiver built into
it and cars are now available with built-in GPS receivers so that drivers should not get
lost. Emergency calls from cellular phones carry information about the phone’s location
based on received GPS data.

1.2 A Brief History of Satellite Communications

Satellite communications began in October 1957 with the launch by the USSR of a small
satellite called Sputnik I. This was the first artificial earth satellite, and it sparked the
space race between the United States and the USSR. Sputnik I carried only a beacon
transmitter and did not have communications capability, but demonstrated that satel-
lites could be placed in orbit by powerful rockets. The first satellite successfully launched
by the United States was Explorer I, launched from Cape Canaveral on 31 January 1958
on a Juno I rocket. The first voice heard from space was that of President Eisenhower,
who recorded a brief Christmas message that was transmitted back to earth from the
Project Score satellite in December 1958. The Score satellite was essentially the core of
the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) booster with a small payload in the
nose. A tape recorder on Score had a storage capacity that allowed a four-minute mes-
sage received from an earth station to be retransmitted. The batteries on Score failed
after 35 days in orbit.
After some early attempts to use large balloons (Echo I and II) as passive reflectors for
communication signals, and some small experimental satellite launches, the first true
communications satellites, Telstar I and II, were launched in July 1962 and May 1963.
The Telstar satellites were built by Bell Telephone Laboratories and used transponders
adapted from terrestrial microwave link equipment. The uplink was at 6389 MHz and
the downlink at 4169 MHz, with 50 MHz bandwidth. The satellites carried solar cells and
batteries that allowed continuous use of the single transponder, and demonstrations of
live television links and multiplexed telephone circuits were made across the Atlantic
Ocean, emphatically demonstrating the feasibility of satellite communications.
The Telstar satellites were launched into what is now called a medium earth orbit, with
periods of 158 and 225 minutes. This allowed transatlantic links to operate for about
20 minutes while the satellite was mutually visible. The orbits chosen for the Telstar
satellites took them through several bands of high energy radiation, which caused early
failure of the electronics on board. However, the value of communication satellites had
been demonstrated and work was begun to develop launch vehicles that could deliver a
payload to geostationary orbit, and to develop satellites that could provide useful com-
munication capacity (Telstar 2018).
6 1 Introduction

On 24 July 1961, US President John F. Kennedy defined the general guidelines of US

policy in regard to satellite communications and made the first unambiguous references
to a single worldwide system. On 20 December 1961, the US Congress recommended
that the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) should examine the aspects
of space communications for which international cooperation would be necessary. The
most critical step was on 20 December 1961, when the US Congress passed the Commu-
nications Satellite Act. This set the stage for commercial investment in an international
satellite organization and, on 19 July 1964, representatives of the first 12 countries to
invest in what became Intelsat (the International Telecommunications Satellite Orga-
nization) signed an initial agreement. The company that represented the United States
at this initial signing ceremony was Comsat, an entity Congress created to act for the
United States within Intelsat. At this point the Bell System had a complete monopoly of
all long distance telephone communications within the United States. When Congress
passed the Communications Satellite Act, the Bell System was specifically barred from
directly participating in satellite communications, although it was permitted to invest
in Comsat.
Comsat essentially managed Intelsat in the formative years and should be credited
with the remarkable success of the international venture. The first five Intelsat series of
satellites (INTELSAT I through V) were selected, and their procurement managed, by
teams put in place under Comsat leadership. Over this same phase, though, large por-
tions of the Comsat engineering and operations groups transferred over to Intelsat so
that, when the Permanent Management Arrangements came into force in 1979, many
former Comsat groups were now part of Intelsat. Intelsat was eventually sold to private
investors in 2001, and the proceeds divided up among the member counties. Intelsat was
sold for US$3.1B in January 2005 to four private equity firms. The company acquired
PanAmSat on 3 July 2006, and is now the world’s largest provider of fixed satellite ser-
vices, operating a fleet of 52 GEO satellites. In June 2007 BC Partners announced they
had acquired 76% of Intelsat for about 3.75 billion euros (Intelsat 2017). (Fixed satellite
services provide communications between earth stations that do not move, in contrast
to mobile satellite services.)
In mid-1963, 99% of all satellites had been launched into LEO, and the higher MEO
were much easier to reach than GEO with the small launchers available at that time.
The intense debate was eventually settled on launcher reliability issues rather than on
payload capabilities. The first six years of the so-called space age was a period of both
payload and launcher development. The new frontier was very risky, with about one
launch in four being fully successful. The system architecture of the first proposed com-
mercial communications satellite system employed 12 satellites in an equatorial MEO
constellation. Thus, with the launch failure rate at the time, 48 launches were envisioned
to guarantee 12 operational satellites in orbit. Without 12 satellites in orbit, continuous
24-hour coverage could not be offered. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week –
referred to as 24/7 operation – is a requirement for any successful communications ser-
vice. A GEO systems architecture requires only one satellite to provide 24/7 operation
over essentially one third of the inhabited world. On this basis, four launches would be
required to achieve coverage of one third of the earth; 12 for the entire inhabited world.
Despite its unproven technological approach, the geostationary orbit was selected by
the entities that became Intelsat.
Launching satellites has become more reliable, with the best performance achieved
by the United Launch Alliance (ULA) formed by Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. By 2016
 1.2 A Brief History of Satellite Communications 7

ULA had conducted 164 consecutive satellite launches without a single failure. Newer
entrants to the launch business offering much lower cost launches than ULA have been
less successful, with occasional spectacular launch failures when the rocket exploded on
the launch pad.
The first Intelsat satellite, INTELSAT I (formerly Early Bird) was launched on 16
April 1965. The satellite weighed a mere 36 kg (80 lb.) and incorporated two 6/4 GHz
transponders, each with 25 MHz bandwidth. Commercial operations commenced
between Europe and the United States on 28 June 28 1965. Thus, about two decades after
Clarke’s landmark article in Wireless World, GEO satellite communications began. Intel-
sat was highly successful and grew rapidly as many countries saw the value of improved
telecommunications, not just internationally but for national systems that provided high
quality satellite communications within the borders of large countries.
Canada was the first country to build a national telecommunication system using
GEO satellites. ANIK 1A was launched in May 1974, just two months before the first
US domestic satellite, WESTAR 1. The honor of the first regional satellite system, how-
ever, goes to the USSR Molniya system of highly elliptic orbit (HEO) satellites, the first
of which was launched in April 1965 (the same month as INTELSAT I). Countries that
are geographically spread like the former USSR, which covered 11 time zones, have used
regional satellite systems very effectively. Another country that benefited greatly from a
GEO regional system was Indonesia, which consists of more than 3000 islands spread
out over more than a thousand miles. A terrestrially based telecommunication system
was not economically feasible for these countries, while a single GEO satellite allowed
instant communications region wide. Such ease of communications via GEO satellites
proved to be very profitable. Within less than 10 years, Intelsat was self-supporting and,
since it was not allowed to make a profit, it began returning substantial revenues to its
Signatories. Within 25 years, Intelsat had more than 100 Signatories and, in early 2000,
there were 143 member countries and Signatories that formed part of the international
Intelsat community (Intelsat 2017).
The astonishing commercial success of Intelsat led many nations to invest in their own
satellite systems, and by 2015 a total of 57 countries were operating one or more active
satellites. Many of the original Intelsat Signatories had been privatized by the early 1990s
and were, in effect, competing not only with each other in space communications, but
with Intelsat. It was clear that some mechanism had to be found whereby Intelsat could
be turned into a for-profit, private entity, which could then compete with other com-
mercial organizations while still safeguarding the interests of the smaller nations that
had come to depend upon the remarkably low cost communications cost that Intelsat
offered. The first step in the move to privatizing Intelsat was the establishment of a com-
mercial company called New Skies and the transfer of a number of Intelsat satellites to
New Skies.
In the 1970s and 1980s there was rapid development of GEO satellite systems for inter-
national, regional, and domestic telephone traffic and video distribution. In the United
States, the expansion of fiber optic links with very high capacity and low delay caused vir-
tually all telephone traffic to move to terrestrial circuits by 1985. However, the demand
for satellite systems grew steadily through this period, and the available spectrum in
the 6/4 GHz band (C-band) was quickly occupied, leading to expansion into 14/11 GHz
band (Ku-band). In the United States, most of the expansion after 1985 was in the areas
of video distribution and very small aperture terminals (VSAT) networks. By 1995 it
was clear that the GEO orbit capacity at Ku-band would soon be filled, and 30/20 GHz
8 1 Introduction

(Ka-band) satellite systems would be needed to handle the expansion of digital traffic,
especially wide band delivery of high speed internet data. Société Européenne de Satel-
lites (SES), based in Luxemburg, began two way multimedia and internet access service
in western and central Europe at Ka-band using the Astra 1H satellite in 2001 (SES Astra
2001). Direct to home satellite TV (DHS-TV), also called direct broadcast satellite TV
continued to grow its customer base in the United States until 2016 when demand lev-
eled off as subscription TV services became available on the internet.
In 2011 ViaSat launched ViaSat I, a Ka-band satellite with a digital data capacity of
140 Gbps, exceeding the combined capacity of all the Ku-band digital data satellites in
orbit at that time (ViaSat I 2012). ViaSat 1 has 72 spot beams, 63 over the United States
and 9 over Canada, and 56 Ka-band transponders. ViaSat 1 is intended to provide direct
to home internet access, using a system marketed by Echostar as Exede, (later called
ViaSat) over the populated areas of the United States and Canada. Part of the Rocky
Mountain region has no spot beams because of low population density, and the Cana-
dian beams are along the country’s southern border with the United States. The satellite
can also be used for DBS-TV. A similar satellite called Jupiter, later named Echostar
17, was launched by HughesNet for their internet access service. HughesNet became a
subsidiary of EchoStar in 2011. The high capacity satellites provide internet access with
downlink speeds up to 25 Mbps and uplinks at 3 Mbps, comparable to terrestrial cable
speeds. More details of internet access by satellite can be found in Chapter 11.
The ability of satellite systems to provide communication with mobile users had long
been recognized, and the International Maritime Satellite Organization (Inmarsat) has
provided service to ships and aircraft for several decades, although at a high price. LEO
satellites were seen as one way to create a satellite telephone system with worldwide cov-
erage; numerous proposals were floated in the 1990s, with three LEO systems eventually
reaching completion by 2000 (Iridium, Globalstar, and Orbcomm). The implementation
of a LEO and MEO satellite system for mobile communication has proved much more
costly than anticipated, and the capacity of the systems is relatively small compared to
GEO satellite systems, leading to a higher cost per transmitted bit. Satellite telephone
systems were unable to compete with cellular telephone because of the high cost and
relatively low capacity of the space segment. The Iridium system, for example, cost over
US$5B to implement, but provided a total capacity for the United States of fewer than
10 000 telephone circuits. Iridium Inc. declared bankruptcy in early 2000, having failed
to establish a sufficiently large customer base to make the venture commercially viable.
The entire Iridium system was sold to Iridium Satellite LLC for a reported US$25M,
approximately 0.5% of the system’s construction cost.
Satellite navigation systems, known generically as GNSS have revolutionized naviga-
tion and surveying. The global positioning system, created by the US Department of
Defense (DoD) took almost 20 years to design and fully implement, at a cost of US$12B.
By 2000, GPS receivers could be built in Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) form
for less than US$25, and the worldwide GPS industry was earning billions of dollars from
equipment sales and services. In the United States, aircraft navigation is transitioning to
a GPS based system known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B),
which requires all aircraft operating under air traffic control to carry ADS-B equipment
by 2020. ADS-B will replace radar as the main information source for air traffic control,
although some radars will be retained for air defense and detection of aircraft with-
out ADS-B capability. ADS-B transponders on Iridium satellites will eventually provide
worldwide location of all commercial aircraft. Accurate navigation of ships, especially in
 1.3 Satellite Communications in 2018 9

coastal waters and bad weather, is also heavily reliant on GPS. Europe has a comparable
satellite navigation system called Galileo and China is building the Beidou system. GPS
and ADS-B are the topics of Chapter 12.

1.3 Satellite Communications in 2018

Satellites come in many shapes and sizes. The smallest are cubesats, a low cost satel-
lite that has a standard form called 1 U that is a 0.1 m cube with a maximum weight
of 1 kg. Cubes can be joined together in one plane to make 2 U, 3 U … satellites. Cubes
come with solar cells, batteries and options for microprocessors, plus standard software.
The builder can add scientific experiments, communication systems and antennas, and
other extras. Cubesats have proved popular with schools and universities because the
basic satellite can be purchased for US$50 000 and a launch as a secondary payload can
cost US$100 000 or less. Their development has at led to new ways of building satellites
at much lower cost than large GEO satellites, and has spurred the creation of constel-
lations of thousands of LEO satellites that can provide the entire world with internet
access. Rockets that have payload space and weight to spare sometimes launch dozens
of cubesats into low earth orbit (LEO). Chapter 8 discusses cubesats in more detail and
Chapter 11 discusses large LEO satellite constellations.
GEO satellites were the backbone of the commercial satellite communications indus-
try for 50 years. Large GEO satellites can serve one third of the earth’s surface and can
carry up to 140 Gbps of data, or transmit up to 200 high power DBS-TV signals. The
weight and power of GEO satellites has increased. In 2018 a large GEO satellite could
weigh 6000 kg (6 tons), generate 16 kW of power and carry 72 transponders, with a trend
toward even higher powers but lower weight. Electrical propulsion systems for raising
the satellite to GEO orbit and positioning over the satellite’s lifetime avoid the need to
carry fuel for gas jets; in a large GEO satellite fuel can account for half the initial weight
of the satellite when it reaches orbit. Multiple beam antennas allow radio frequencies
to be reused many times over, and also to transmit local TV channels from DBS-TV
satellites. In between tiny cubesats and large GEO satellites is a range of satellites of
medium size and weight that are used for earth observation and meteorology, scientific
research, and communications using constellations of LEO or MEO satellites. The one
common feature of all these satellites is that they require radio communication systems,
the subject of this book.
Television program distribution and DBS-TV have become the major source of
revenue for commercial satellite system operators, earning US$98B of the industry’s
US$122B revenues from communication services in 2016. By 2016 there were over 33
million DBS-TV customers in the United States and 230 million worldwide (SIA 2017).
Direct to home satellite television and the distribution of video material to cable TV
operators and broadcast stations has become the largest part by far of the satellite com-
munication industry, at least until 2020. The next largest segment is position location
systems, where almost all revenue comes from receiving equipment.
To achieve high capacity with a GEO satellite requires the use of high power terrestrial
transmitters and high gain earth station antennas. Earth station antenna gain translates
directly into communication capacity, and therefore into revenue. Increased capacity
lowers the delivery cost per bit for a customer. Systems with fixed directional antennas
can deliver bits at a significantly low cost than systems using low gain antennas, such as
10 1 Introduction

those used on mobile terminals. Until the large LEO constellations for internet access
come into use, GEO communications satellites will continue to be the largest revenue
earners in space, along with the consumer GPS industry that supplies GPS chips and
software for automobiles and cell phones.
Low earth orbit satellites are used for surveillance of the earth’s surface. Civil uses,
termed earth observation, include agricultural surveys to monitor growing crops, pro-
duction of maps, weather observation, and surveys of archeological sites. Visible and
infrared wavelengths yield different information, especially with vegetation. The reso-
lution of commercially available earth observation data in 2017 was about 0.3 m. Mili-
tary surveillance satellites have become an important part of the defensive capabilities
of many countries, and are among the largest and heaviest satellites launched to date.
These satellites are in very low earth orbits to obtain the highest possible resolution, and
utilize visible and infrared wavelengths as well as radar observations. Infrared emissions
have the advantage of being available during the night, whereas visible observations can
only be made in daylight. The resolution achieved by military satellites is classified, but is
undoubtedly much higher than that of civil earth observation satellites. In 2016 several
proposals were approved by the US Federal Communications Commission (US FCC) for
constellations of thousands of LEO satellites in low and very low earth orbit. These satel-
lites operate in the Ka- and V-bands (18–50 GHz) providing internet access for homes
anywhere in the world, especially in counties that lack a well developed terrestrial com-
munication system. Once completed, these constellations will have many more satellites
than all the satellites previously launched into orbit.
All radio systems require frequency spectrum, and the delivery of high speed data
requires a wide bandwidth. Satellite communication systems started in C-band, with
an allocation of 500 MHz, shared with terrestrial microwave links. As the GEO orbit
filled up with satellites operating at C-band, satellites were built for the next available
frequency band, Ku-band. Both C-band and Ku-band frequency allocations have been
expanded over the years to increase the capacity of the GEO orbit, both by moving other
services out of the satellite band, or adopting frequency sharing techniques.
There is a continuing demand for ever more spectrum to allow satellites to expand
DBS-TV offerings and to provide new services, resulting in a move to Ka-band and
even higher frequencies. Access to the internet from small transmitting Ka-band earth
stations located at the home offers an alternative to terrestrial cable and telephone net-
works, especially in rural areas. SES began two way Ka-band internet access in Europe
in 1998 with the Astra-K satellite, and ViaSat and Hughes Network Systems offer inter-
net access through their Exede and Hughesnet systems in the United States, both now
owned by Echostar (2017). Worldwide access to the internet via LEO and MEO satellite
systems using Ka- and V-bands is also being developed.
Successive World Radio Conferences have allocated new frequency bands for com-
mercial satellite services that now include L, S, C, Ku, K, Ka, V, and W bands.
Table 1.1 gives the frequency designations for these letter bands. Letter bands were first
used in World War II to obscure the frequencies of newly developed radars. By the end of
the war there were seven different letter systems in use, and at least four systems cover-
ing radio communications, radar, and electronic warfare are still in widespread use. The
frequency designations for letter bands for radio communication were eventually stan-
dardized by the IEEE (IEEE Std 521-2002 2012). Mobile satellite systems use very high
frequency (VHF), ultra high frequency (UHF), L- and S-bands with carrier frequencies
from 137 to 2500 MHz; GEO and LEO satellites use frequency bands extending from
 1.4 Overview of Satellite Communications 11

Table 1.1 IEEE standard definitions for radio frequency bands [IEEE Std 521-2002]

Letter band Frequency range

HF 3–30 MHz
VHF 30–300 MHz
UHF 300 MHz–1 GHz
L 1–2 GHz
S 2–4 GHz
C 4–8 GHz
X 8–12 GHz
Ku 12–18 GHz
K 18–27 GHz
Ka 27–40 GHz
V 40–75 GHz
W 75–110 GHz
mm wave 110–300 GHz

3.2 to 50 GHz. (VHF and UHF bands are defined by the ITU, along with super high fre-
quency (SHF) and extremely high frequency (EHF), using the adjectives very high, ultra
high, super high, and extra high, in decades of frequency. These designations are rarely
used above 1 GHz, except by the ITU.)
Despite the growth of fiber optic links with very high capacity, the demand for satellite
systems continues to increase. Satellites have also become integrated into complex com-
munications architectures that use each element of the network to its best advantage.
Examples are very small aperture terminals/wireless local loop (VSAT/WLL) in coun-
tries where the communications infrastructure is not yet mature and Local Multipoint
Distribution Systems (GEO/LMDS) for the urban fringes of developed nations where
the build-out of fiber has yet to be an economic proposition.

1.4 Overview of Satellite Communications

Satellite communication systems exist because the earth is a sphere. Radio waves travel
in straight lines at the microwave frequencies used for wideband communications, so a
repeater is needed to convey signals over long distances. Satellites, because they can link
places on the earth that are thousands of miles apart are a good place to locate repeaters.
A radio frequency repeater is simply a receiver linked to a transmitter, using different
radio frequencies for transmit and receive, which can receive a signal from one earth
station, amplify it, and retransmit it to another earth station. The repeater derives its
name from nineteenth-century telegraph links, which had a maximum length of about
50 miles. Telegraph repeater stations were required every 50 miles in a long distance link
so that the Morse code signals could be resent before they became too weak to read.
Repeaters on satellites are called transponders.
In 2018, the majority of communication satellites were in geostationary earth orbit,
at an altitude of 35 786 km, over the equator. A typical path length from an earth station
12 1 Introduction

to a GEO satellite is 38 500 km. Because radio signals get weaker in proportion to
the square of the distance traveled, signals reaching a satellite are always very weak.
Similarly, signals received on earth from a satellite 38 500 km away are also very weak,
because there are limits on the size of the antennas on GEO satellites and the electrical
power they can generate using solar cells. The cost to place a geostationary satellite
into orbit has fallen over the years as the number of launching options has increased. In
2018, the cost to launch a 8300 kg satellite into GEO varied from US$7600 to US$25 000
per kilogram, and a minimum of US$2700 per kilogram into LEO (Launch cost 2018).
This obviously places severe restrictions on the size and weight of GEO satellites, since
the high cost of building and launching a satellite must be recovered over a 10 to 15
year lifetime by selling communications capacity. LEO and MEO satellites cost less to
launch, but an entire constellation of 12 to 66 satellites is needed to provide continuous
coverage. In 2018 there were 160 proposals for LEO satellite systems for internet access
using constellations as large as 12 000 satellites. Not all of these proposals will become
working systems (Sweeting 2017).
Figure 1.3 illustrates some of the ways that satellites are used to provide communi-
cation services. In Figure 1.3a, a one way link is established between two earth sta-
tions via a single transponder on a GEO satellite. This configuration is used for the
analysis of a satellite link, but not often in practice because two way communication
is usually required. The transmission from earth station A to the satellite is called the
uplink, and the transmission from the satellite to earth station B is called the downlink.
In Figure 1.3b, the one way transmission is received by many receiving earth stations,
sometimes as many as 30 million as in a DBS-TV system. DBS-TV satellites carry many
transponders so that a large variety of video and audio channels can be sent to sub-
scribers. In Figure 1.3c, a two way link is established through a single transponder. Earth
station A transmits to the satellite at a frequency f 1, which is transposed to a different
frequency f 2 by the transponder, so earth station B receives at a frequency f 2. Earth
station B transmits to the satellite at a frequency f 3, which occupies a different part of
the transponder bandwidth from earth station A’s transmission at frequency f 1. Earth
station A receives signals from the satellite at a frequency f 4. Using radio frequency to
separate signals is known as frequency division multiplexing. An alternative technique
is time division multiplexing, in which all transmitting stations share the same uplink
frequency but transmit at different times such that their signals arrive at the satellite in
sequence. All the receiving earth stations receive all the transmitted uplink signals and
use time division techniques to extract the wanted signals.
Figure 1.3d illustrates a position location system such as GPS. GPS employs a constel-
lation of 24 MEO satellites such that four satellites are always visible to a GPS receiver.
The receiver compares the time of arrival of a spread spectrum sequence from each
satellite and calculates the location of the receiver, and also the exact time referenced
to atomic clocks on GPS satellites. All GPS receivers know time within one microsec-
ond, which allows systems such a cellular telephones to be synchronized with great
accuracy. Because a GPS receiver must simultaneously accept signals from different
parts of the sky, an omnidirectional antenna is needed. Compared to the dish antennas
used in DBS-TV, an omnidirectional antenna has a very low gain, so GPS signals are
extremely weak.
Satellite communication systems are dominated by the need to receive very weak
signals. In the early days, very large receiving antennas with diameters up to 30 m were
needed to collect sufficient signal power to drive video signals or multiplexed telephone
 1.4 Overview of Satellite Communications 13

GEO satellite GEO satellite

Transponder Transponder

Transmitting f2 Receiving f1
f1
earth station A earth station B
f2 f2 f2 f2 f2
Transmitting Many receiving
earth station earth stations

Earth

One way satellite link

Point to Point Earth Broadcasting satellite link
Point to Multipoint

(a) (b)

GEO satellite

Transponder

f1 f2

f4 f3
Earth Earth
station A station B
GPS satellites

Earth GPS antenna

Two way satellite link
Point to Point

(c) (d)

Figure 1.3 Illustration of different application of satellites. (a) One way satellite link from earth station
A to earth station B. Uplink frequency is f 1, downlink frequency is f 2. (b) Point to multipoint link
(broadcasting) from a single uplink transmitting station to many receiving stations. Uplink frequency is
f 1 and all downlinks are at the same frequency f 2. (c) Two way connection between earth station A
and earth station B. Station A transmits at frequency f 1 and receives at frequency f 4. Station B
transmits at frequency f 3 and receives at frequency f 2. (d) Illustration of four GPS satellites
broadcasting to an automobile. The GPS receiver uses an omnidirectional antenna.

channels. As satellites have become larger, heavier, and more powerful, smaller earth
station antennas have become feasible, and DBS-TV receiving systems can use dish
antennas as small as 0.5 m in diameter. Satellite systems operate in the microwave and
millimeter wave frequency bands, using frequencies between 1 and 50 GHz. Above
10 GHz, rain causes significant attenuation of the signal and the probability that rain
will occur in the path between the satellite and an earth station must be factored into
the system design. Above 20 GHz, attenuation in heavy rain (usually associated with
thunderstorms) can cause sufficient attenuation that the link will fail.
For the first 20 years of satellite communications, analog signals were widely used,
with most links employing frequency modulation (FM). Wideband FM can operate
at low carrier to noise ratios (CNRs), in the 5 to 10 dB range, but provides a signal to
noise improvement so that video and telephone signals can be delivered with signal
to noise ratios (SNRs) of 50 dB. The penalty for the SNR improvement is that the RF
14 1 Introduction

signal occupies a much larger bandwidth than the baseband signal. In satellite links
that penalty results because signals are always weak and the improvement in SNR
is essential. Analog satellite communications is now obsolete for commercial use,
although US amateur radio enthusiast still use FM voice links with their OSCAR series
of experimental satellites.
Almost all communication signals are now digital – telephony, data, DBS-TV, radio
and television broadcasting, and navigation with GPS all use digital signaling tech-
niques. However, sound radio still uses amplitude modulation (AM) and FM analog
transmissions for the majority of terrestrial radio broadcasting because of the enormous
numbers of existing radio sets. All of the LEO and MEO mobile communication sys-
tems are digital, taking advantage of voice compression techniques that allow a digital
voice signal to be compressed into a bit stream at 4.8 kbps. Similarly, the Motion Pic-
tures Expert Group developed the MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video compression techniques
allowing video signals to be transmitted in full fidelity at rates less than 4 Mbps.
The most profitable application of satellite communications to date has been broad-
casting. One GEO satellite can broadcast its signals to an entire continent, North Amer-
ica and Europe being typical examples. The population of the United States in 2017 was
estimated to be 332 million people, in approximately 110 million households. DirecTV
and Dish network together had 33 million subscribers to their DBS-TV transmissions,
or nearly one third of all households in the United States. That is why Figure 1.2 shows
that distribution of television programming is by far the largest revenue earner world-
wide. However, this may change in the next decade if the proposed constellations
of thousands of LEO satellites providing worldwide internet access are successfully
completed.
The constellation of 24 GPS satellites is designed to provide continuous navigation
services to every part of the earth. This is another example of satellite broadcasting, this
time from a medium earth orbit. The manufacture and sale of GPS receivers represent
19% of the worldwide revenue from satellite communications systems. By comparison,
satellites that provide links between individual users, as illustrated in Figure 1.3b, have
a much smaller number of users and do not have the earning power of broadcasting
satellites unless a worldwide constellation of thousands of LEO satellites is constructed.
User terminals for LEO satellites need phased array antennas to track the satellites across
the sky, at a much lower price than any such antennas available before 2017. A target
price for the phased array antenna of US$200 is needed to make LEO internet access
terminals available to a worldwide customer base. The challenge for satellite internet
access systems is to serve a sufficiently large user base at a data rate and price that is
comparable to other internet providers.

1.5 Summary
Satellite communication systems have become an essential part of the world’s telecom-
munications infrastructure, serving billions of people with video, data, internet access,
telephone, and navigation services. Despite the growth of fiber optic links, which have
much greater capacity than satellite systems and a lower cost per bit, satellite systems
continue to thrive and investment in new systems continues. Satellite services have
shifted away from telephony to video and data delivery, with television broadcasting
directly to the home emerging as one of the most powerful applications. GEO satellites
 1.6 Organization of This Book 15

carried the majority of services in 2018, because the use of high gain fixed antennas at
earth stations maximizes the capacity of the satellite. Over the years, there has been a
trend away from trunk communications using very large earth station antennas toward
delivery from more powerful satellites to individual users with much smaller antennas.
VSAT networks using small antennas and low power transmitters are popular for link-
ing together many locations in a single organization, such as retail stores and automobile
dealerships. LEO and MEO satellites are used for mobile communications and naviga-
tion systems and, as the need for Geographic Information Systems grows with a variety
of applications, LEO earth imaging satellites have the potential to provide strong rev-
enue streams. Internet access by satellite is likely to be the largest sector of the industry
by 2025.

1.6 Organization of This Book

Chapter 1 introduces the history of satellite communications and some of the ways that
satellites are used.
Chapter 2 sets out the basics of satellite orbits and the factors that influence a satellite
once in orbit. Calculation of look angles – where to look for a satellite in the sky – is
restricted to GEO satellites. Software is needed to calculate look angles for LEO and
MEO satellites as they move across the sky.
Chapter 3 describes the subsystems required to keep a communications satellite in
orbit and functioning correctly. The communication system is covered in greater detail,
including the organization of transponders, transmit and receive antennas, and use of
frequency bands.
Chapter 4 covers the theory of radio communications and the calculation of carrier to
noise ratio in a satellite link, and also low noise receiver design. The design of satellite
links to achieve specific CNR values to maintain a particular error rate under conditions
of atmospheric attenuation on the radio links is described in detail.
Chapter 5 concentrates on digital modulation methods and their performance in a
satellite link. Forward error correction and error control methods used in DBS-TV and
data links are discussed.
Chapter 6 covers multiple access techniques used in satellite communication systems
to share the available resources of the satellite between multiple users. Frequency
division multiple access, time division multiple access and code division multiple
access (spread spectrum) are the main methods, with random access often used in the
acquisition of a channel. Onboard processing and satellite switching techniques are
discussed.
Chapter 7 explains the effect of the atmosphere on satellite-earth links, with rain being
the most important. Techniques for the prediction of attenuation by clouds and rain
are presented and methods for assessing the availability of satellite links are described.
The RF frequency of a satellite link has a strong influence, as rain attenuation increases
approximately as the square of frequency above 10 GHz.
Chapter 8 discusses some of the many low throughput applications for cubesats,
mobile voice links, and VSAT networks. The commercial world of satellite communica-
tions is dominated by large geostationary satellites that can deliver tens or hundreds of
gigabits per second, but there are many applications for small satellites with much lower
throughput.
16 1 Introduction

Chapter 9 describes the many orbits that are employed by satellite systems, generi-
cally grouped as non-geostationary (NGSO). These include LEO and MEO, which are
becoming increasingly important for internet access via satellite.
Chapter 10 explains how direct broadcast satellite television and radio satellites pro-
vide hundreds of video and audio channels to subscribers. Techniques to mitigate the
effect of rain on the RF path between the satellite and earth are described, and the prob-
ability of outages is discussed.
Chapter 11 is new to the third edition of Satellite Communications, covering the topic
of internet access via satellite. This has become an important service for people in rural
areas who are not served by cable companies or cellular telephone. Satellite internet
access is also important in poorer countries where infrastructure is less well developed
and satellite access can provide service over a wide area. Both GEO and LEO access
systems are discussed and compared in terms of cost and capacity.
Chapter 12 covers satellite navigation systems, with emphasis on GPS. As discussed
earlier in this chapter, GPS has become a major part of the satellite communications
industry accounting for 19% of all revenue in 2016. The design of GPS receivers and the
acquisition of GPS signals is covered in detail, and the system’s vulnerability to jamming
is discussed.

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