Wireless Networks 4 (1998) 101–107 101

Satellite communications systems move into the twenty-first

century
Leonard S. Golding
Hughes Network Systems, Inc., Germantown, MD 20876, USA

This paper discusses the evolution of communication satellite systems and communications satellite technology from the 1960’s to
the 1990’s. The paper identifies the key attributes of satellite communications that has driven this evolution and now drives the future
directions such systems will take. The paper then discusses the future direction of communication satellite systems including DBS, MSS,
FSS and hybrid satellite/terrestrial systems. The paper points to the continued evolution of the satellite payload to use of spot beams,
onboard processing and switching, and intersatellite links, with capability for higher EIRPs. The paper also identifies the earth station
trends to more compact, lower cost stations, produced in higher volumes, with the handheld phone for MSS operation being the prime
example of this trend. The paper then points to some revolutionary trends in satellite communication networks being proposed for MSS
and FSS applications involving fleets of NGSO satellites combined with more extensive ground networks involving new networking
concepts, new services (such as multimedia) and new hybrid configurations working with terrestrial networks, involving a host of new
network issues and operations.

1. Evolution of communication satellite systems

Satellite communications was launched in October 1957

when Sputnik I carried out telemetry communications with
the ground for 21 days. The first man-made satellite used
for voice communications was Score, launched in Decem-
ber 1958. The early communications satellites such as
Score, Echo, Courier, Telstar, and Relay were all nongeo-
synchronous satellites having altitudes ranging from a few
hundred to ten thousand kilometers. Syncom II and Syn-
com III, launched in July 1963, established the feasibility of
geosynchronous communications satellite systems. Intelsat,
formed in July 1964 by a United Nations resolution, started
the era of the commercial use of communications satellites,
which became a reality with the launch of the Early Bird
geosynchronous satellite in April 1965. As shown in fig-
ure 1, the traffic growth through 1990 was an impressive Figure 1. Total Intelsat satellite traffic.
15 to 20 percent per year, growing to 120,000 channels by
1990. cial satellite systems, and by the mid-1970s domestic and
The Intelsat system was initially viewed as an interna- regional satellite systems began to appear. These systems
tional trunking system carrying large trunks of voice traffic began to take advantage of some of the inherent character-
between big Standard A earth stations, each with 97 foot istics of satellite systems.
diameter antennas and costing millions of dollars – sort of These inherent characteristics are not only the key to
an extension of international cable systems. In the first the evolution of communications satellite systems, but are
25 years of operation, the capacities of the satellites have also the key to the future directions of these systems. The
increased 200 times over their early predecessors, and the two basic properties of satellite systems that lead to its
cost per channel for the space segment has shown a corre- applications are:
sponding drop in cost.
Earth station trends have always been in the direction (1) Ability to cover large areas of the earth’s surface at any
of smaller, lower cost stations going from the large Stan- given instant of time.
dard A Intelsat stations to handheld satellite terminals for (2) The communications system is some form of a radio
new mobile satellite systems to become operational by the
system.
year 2000.
The trend toward lower cost satellite communications These two properties in turn lead to a number of impor-
made it possible to operate national and regional commer- tant characteristics:

 J.C. Baltzer AG, Science Publishers

102 L.S. Golding / Satellite communications systems move into the twenty-first century
(a) Ability to provide service and aggregate traffic over
wide areas.
(b) Ability to allocate resources (bandwidth and power) to
different users over the coverage region as needed.
(c) Distance-insensitive costs.
(d) Ability to provide coverage to mobile users operating
over wide areas, including rural areas, water areas, and
large volumes of air space.
(e) Ability to easily provide point-to-multipoint (broad-
cast), multipoint-to-point (data collection), and point-
to-point communications.
(f) Ability to have direct access to users and user premises.
These characteristics have led to the use of regional satel-
lites to distribute television signals to cable headends and
television broadcast stations throughout the region; mar-
itime and land mobile communications to ships, airplanes,
land vehicles, and small transportable terminals; and super-
visory control and data access (SCADA) applications for
monitoring pipelines, water levels, and other data collec-
tion applications.
Communications satellites are ideal for broadcast (point-
to-multipoint) applications because of the large area cover-
age capability and distance insensitive characteristic. An-
other more subtle characteristic that is evident in this appli-
cation is the quality of the link. Because of the altitude of
these satellites over the coverage regions, elevation angles
from 10 to 40 degrees can typically be obtained from the
user’s location to the satellites, which results in a single hop
communications link between the distribution earth station
and the user earth station, which involves a line-of-sight up-
link to the satellite and a corresponding line-of-sight down-
link from the satellite. Each link is an additive Gaussian
white noise channel, which can be designed to deliver high
quality end-to-end service. This single hop access directly
to the user can, in many cases, result in higher “quality
of service” than terrestrial links, which may require many
hops before the signal is delivered to the user.
As higher radiated power has been achieved from com-
munication satellites, direct television broadcast to users
has become a reality with the ASTRA satellite in Europe
and DIRECTV service in the U.S.A.
Up to this point in time fixed services has been the main
use of commercial communication satellites; however, the
trend toward smaller and smaller earth stations has been
evident, as has been the trend to provide direct satellite
access to the end user. During the last 10 years we have
seen a growth in very small aperture terminal (VSAT) net-
works using user terminals with antenna sizes from 0.75 to
2.5 meters in diameter, providing data networks for corpora-
tions, voice networks for carriers, and multimedia services
including video broadcast, audio broadcast, teleconferenc-
ing, facsimile, and various data services including, more
recently, high speed Internet access for corporate and resi-
dential users.
These VSAT networks have been successful in compet-
ing against terrestrial networks because they have offered
direct access to end users on the satellite network, multi-
media service capability for small incremental costs, high
end-to-end service quality, and not only better control of
costs but cost-effectiveness when compared to terrestrial
costs. The satellite characteristics of large area coverage,
flexible allocation of satellite resources, aggregation of traf-
fic over wide areas, and distance insensitivity all contribute
to the success of VSAT networks.
A recent market survey by Euroconsult indicates that
between July 1996 and the end of 2006, 262 to 313 geosta-
tionary satellites will be launched, not including the large
number of low earth orbit (LEO) and intermediate circu-
lar orbit (ICO) satellites that will be launched in the same
time frame. Clearly, satellite communications is undergo-
ing continued growth into the twenty-first century.
2. Evolution of communication satellite technology
As shown in figure 2, communications satellite tech-
nology primarily focused on the geostationary satellite or-
bit, with a so called “bent-pipe” communications payload.
From geostationary orbit the earth subtends an angle of 17◦ ,
and the early synchronous (with the earth’s rotation) satel-
lites had a global coverage beam, which covered around
one-third of the globe, with a “bent-pipe” payload, as shown
in figure 2. The satellite support systems that are needed are
identified below the communications payload. These sup-
port systems are not part of the communications payload,
but affect the payload performance. The satellite config-
uration shown in figure 2 had limited capacity; however,
it was very flexible in terms of the air interfaces and the
ground connectivity it could support.
One of the most important new technologies is the use
of spot beams on the satellite. This technology permits the
use of smaller ground terminals by increasing the satellite
effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) and satellite re-
ceiver sensitivity. It also permits an increase in capacity by
allowing for frequency reuse through spatial isolation be-
tween beams, and results in more effective use of limited
prime power on the satellite by having the radiated radio
frequency (RF) power be directed only where it is needed.
The satellite spot beams can be fixed, can be made steer-
able, or can be made to hop from one location to another in
time. The number of spot beams can range from a few to
several hundred and typically cover regions on the ground
from a few hundred miles to several thousand miles. While
satellite spot beams offer many advantages, they make it
more difficult to have full interconnectivity among all of
the earth stations using the satellite. As shown in figure 3,
a spot beam satellite requires some form of interconnec-
tion network. This network may be a bank of filters, with
each filter having its output connected to a specific down-
link beam. In this case, routing between beams is done
by selecting the appropriate carrier frequencies. An alter-
native method may be to have the interconnection done
 L.S. Golding / Satellite communications systems move into the twenty-first century 103

Figure 2. “Bent-pipe” satellite block diagram.

Figure 3. Spot beam payload using microwave interconnection.

in time. In this case, the interconnection network, at dif-
ferent times, provides different paths between the uplink
and downlink beams. The correct connection is made by
transmitting the information in bursts on the uplink so as
to arrive at the satellite when the interconnection network
has the connection to the desired downlink beam. In more
advanced satellite payloads, the spot beams are combined
with onboard demodulation of the uplink signals, baseband
processing and switching of the signals, and remodulation
and coding of the information for downlink transmission,
as illustrated in figure 4. This allows for full flexibility in
both connectivity and air interface characteristics for the
uplink and the downlink. The switch shown in figure 4
may be a circuit switch, or it may be a packet (or ATM)
switch. The onboard processing and switching may also
be controlled from the ground via command and telemetry
links so that changes can be introduced to match varying
conditions in the network.
In addition to the signal processing shown in figure 4,
there may be signal processing associated with forming and
controlling the spot beams on the satellite using an active
phased array antenna.
As shown in figure 5, a complete satellite communi-
cations system comprises a number of elements in addi-
tion to the satellites discussed above. The ground seg-
ment generally will include subscriber earth stations, which
may be fixed or mobile, and a network of fixed gateway
stations, which may be connected to the public switched
telephone network (PSTN), public land mobile network
(PLMN), or a public data network (PDN). A network coor-
dination and/or an operations center generally is involved
to manage the network and handle administrative opera-
tions, maintenance, and provisioning functions. Teleme-
try, tracking, and command (TT&C) stations are provided
to monitor and control the well being of the space seg-
ment.
104 L.S. Golding / Satellite communications systems move into the twenty-first century
Figure 4. Onboard processing payload.
Figure 5. Elements of a satellite communications system.
In addition to the space segment and the ground segment,
there is a third component of the satellite system, namely
the air interface. This interface is primarily involved in
physical layer issues, such as identification of modulation
and multiple access, forward and return control channels,
power control, timing and frequency synchronization, and
fading and shadowing control. In addition, the air interface
is involved with Layer 2 functions such as medium access
control and link access control, and some Layer 3 func-
tions such as call control, radio resource management, and
mobility management (in the case of mobile systems).
Both the ground segment and the air interface have been
undergoing significant changes over the past decade, with
an emphasis on increasing the performance capability of
the satellite system to compete more effectively with ter-
restrial systems, while at the same time driving the size and
the costs down. The subscriber terminals in all the appli-
cation areas have been continually reducing in size, going
toward handheld terminals for either voice or data applica-
tions as proposed for future mobile satellite systems (MSS),
or fixed antennas approaching 1 foot in diameter. The elec-
tronics in the subscriber earth stations are becoming more
integrated, with the use of more MMICs and application-
specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips, as the volume of
the earth stations is increasing and the prices are decreas-
ing. More sophisticated signal processing and intelligence
are being incorporated in the satellite system, in the air
interface, in the management of the system, and in the in-
terfaces to the terrestrial networks and customer premises
equipment (CPE). Much of the added sophistication is re-
alized in software, where more and more of the effort is
centered in the design of new systems. Greater effort has
been exerted not only in developing satellite system stan-
dards, but making sure satellite systems can interoperate
with terrestrial network standards such as ISDN and ATM.
As we move into the twenty-first century we are seeing the
rate of change in satellite communications systems increase
dramatically.
3. Future direction of communication satellite systems
The basic inherent characteristics of communication
satellite systems referred to in section 1, determine the fu-
ture direction of these systems. These future directions are
as follows:
(1) Direct Broadcast Systems (DBS).
(2) Mobile Satellite Systems (MSS).
(3) Fixed Services Systems (FSS).
(4) Hybrid Satellite/Terrestrial Systems.
Satellites have always been well suited to provide broad-
cast services. The capability to provide high radiated power
from the satellite combined with digital source coding and
transmission have made it feasible to provide television and
program audio signals directly to a subscriber having an
earth station with an 18-inch diameter antenna or less and
costing only a few hundred dollars. With such a small earth
station, the subscriber is able to receive a large number of

channels (over 100 TV channels in the DIRECTV ser-
vice), with high quality signals. DBS television systems
already exist in Europe, the U.S. and Japan, and will be
extended to Latin America and other parts of Asia. Di-
rect Broadcast Audio will see a rapid expansion with at
least two systems nearing completion and getting ready for
launch in the next couple of years.
Category (4) above refers to the Hybrid Satellite Sys-
tem. This is a system that uses the terrestrial network to
carry out some functions and the satellite network to carry
out other functions being provided, taking advantage of the
 L.S. Golding / Satellite communications systems move into the twenty-first century
Table 1
Representative MSS.
Name Organization Features Start date
AMSC Hughes 1 GSO Sat.
Iridium Motorola 66 LEO Sat.
GlobalStar Loral/Qualcomm 48 LEO Sat.
ICO ICO 10 MEO Sat.
Odyssey TRW 12 MEO Sat.
– ACes 1 GSO Sat.
properties of each network to provide the overall services
being provided by this hybrid network. The DIRECTV
DBS system serves as an example of such a hybrid system
with terrestrial telephone lines being used to provide return
data links from each satellite subscriber receiving unit to
the Satellite Control Center. These return links are used
to forward subscriber requests, usage data, and other infor-
mation. In this case, terrestrial telephone lines are a lower
cost solution than providing a satellite return link from each
subscriber location.
One of the largest new growth areas in satellite com-
munications is the Mobile Satellite Systems (MSS) area.
Table 1 shows some representative MSS that are in opera-
tion or will be in operation over the next 5 years.
While current MSS have geosynchronous satellites and
ground systems that use mobile terminals which vary from
the size of an attaché case to Standard A Inmarsat stations
with 1-meter diameter steerable dish antennas, and com-
pressed digital voice or low speed data services, the future
MSS will use handheld telephone ground terminals, battery
operated or equivalent wireless personal digital assistance
(PDA) devices. Many of the MSS use a fleet of nongeo-
synchronous satellites either in (LEO) low earth circular
orbits (400 to 1,000 miles in altitude) or in (MEO) medium
circular earth orbits (5,000 to 7,000 miles in altitude) with
either polar or inclined orbits. In addition to the handheld
terminal these MSS will also have other ground terminals
including airplane, shipboard, land vehicles, and fixed pag-
ing and messaging-only terminals.
We have already indicated that hybrid systems would be
employed in DBS systems. More elaborate use of hybrid
systems will occur in MSS. Mobile terminals with dual-
mode capability will be provided, which can be used with
terrestrial cellular systems (when in range of such systems)
or operate through the satellite. Registration, mobility man-
agement, and advanced intelligent network features all may
involve terrestrial network mobile switches working in con-
junction with satellite network switches. Billing, adminis-
trative functions, call control, routing and related roaming
functions will also involve terrestrial switches working with
the satellite network switches and stored databases such as
HLRs and VLRs, where these databases may be part of ter-
restrial cellular systems. Another characteristic of nongeo-
synchronous MSSs is that they provide worldwide cover-
age. The fixed ground network of gateway stations needed
to support worldwide coverage of mobile subscribers itself
may involve an extensive terrestrial network interconnect-
105
ing gateway stations, involving terrestrial transfer of signal-
ing and bearer traffic as well as satellite transfer of these
signals.
1996 Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) have been the primary
1998 application for communication satellites since commercial
1998 operation started with the Intelsat System and more recently
2000 leading into large numbers of VSAT (Very Small Aperture
2000
–
Terminals) networks throughout the world. However, the
future FSS show significant new changes from the exist-
ing C- and Ku-band FSS in operation today. From pro-
posals, filings, and papers made public, a large number
of organizations appear to be pursuing broadband multi-
media fixed services using new Ka-band satellite systems.
A large number of these new systems are following an evo-
lutionary process from the Ku-band satellites. Examples
are “Spaceways” by Hughes and “VoiceSpan” by AT&T,
which are Ka-band geosynchronous systems. These sys-
tems are considerably more advanced than their Ku-band
counterparts, having many more spot beams, wider band-
width channels, on-board processing and switching, higher
capacity yet small, low-cost subscriber ground stations, and
a capability to provide not only voice, but all types of data,
video, facsimile and advanced Internet services. Interop-
erability with terrestrial networks and terrestrial network
standards such as ISDN, ATM and SONET is a primary
objective as is interoperability with a variety of customer
premises equipment, including LANs, routers, videoconfer-
encing terminals (MPEG standards), workstations, digital
PBXs, and other broadband equipment. More sophisticated
network management may be deployed providing various
amounts of bandwidth on demand as needed, different op-
erating modes (packet, circuit or asynchronous random ac-
cess), and different Quality of Service.
In addition to the evolutionary proposals, there also are
some revolutionary proposals for new Ka-band FSS. These
include:
• Teledesic,
• M-Star (Motorola),
• Sativod (Alcatel).
These proposals are for large fleets of non-geosynchro-
nous (typically LEO) satellites providing worldwide broad-
band multimedia service. The M-Star system is a 20–
50 Mbps service, primarily targeted to providing a feeder
link network for terrestrial cellular systems throughout the
world. Teledesic is talking about a satellite fleet of over
800 satellites, all having both on-board processing and in-
tersatellite links. Clearly, the above FSS are completely
different from previous FSS and will generate many new
challenges that have not been faced before. The use of
intersatellite links has also been proposed for some non-
geosynchronous MSSs such as Iridium. While intersatellite
links have been used in some government satellite systems,
they have not as yet been used in commercial systems.
Most of these more revolutionary systems are in their early
stages, with the system architectures still in the formative
period.
106 L.S. Golding / Satellite communications systems move into the twenty-first century
4. Challenges created by the next generation of
satellite systems
There are many challenges that are created as a result of
the new directions of the next DBS, MSS and FSS systems.
Some general trends can be observed in all of these systems.
First, greater complexity in the spacecraft, with the use
of more spot beams, more on-board signal processing and
improved r–f system performance. This leads to challenges
in building more complex microwave and digital integrated
circuits that are also efficient in terms of the use of prime
power and can cope with the spacecraft environment. The
added sophistication built into the spacecraft also has im-
plications in support systems such as attitude control, prime
power generation, battery support and thermal control, re-
quiring improvements in performance in these systems as
well.
In the subscriber ground terminals, the challenge is to
build these terminals smaller in size and at much lower
cost and higher production volume, with the ultimate ter-
minal being handheld dual mode telephones for the MSS.
This means that higher levels of integration are necessary,
leading to more complex microwave and digital integrated
circuits. Another important technical challenge is low-cost,
compact tracking antennas, which would be very important
for the non-geosynchronous MSS and FSS.
One of the most important challenges going into the
21st century is the design of the optimum network for the
satellite systems that will use a fleet of satellites to pro-
vide service on a worldwide basis, proposed both for MSS
and FSS. Having satellites moving relative to a location on
earth and then relying on multiple satellites being visible
to maintain reliable continuous communications, raises a
number of new problems that need to be solved in order
to have these systems provide high performance and low
cost. Some of the new problems that need to be dealt with
include:
• Satellite resource management.
• Network resource management.
• Handover strategies.
• Power, frequency, timing and synchronization control
and management.
• Optimum fixed ground network configuration to support
this fleet of satellites, minimizing terrestrial backhaul
costs and optimizing the use of satellite resources.
• Optimum use of intersatellite links in conjunction with
the ground network.
• Security and authentication in this worldwide system.
• Optimum routing and configuration management of traf-
fic.
• Optimum use of control channels.
• Mobility management, registration and paging for MSS.
• Optimum use of integrated functions such as position
location and communications in MSS.
• Interference management.
• Failure mode analysis and management of a fleet of
satellites.
• Tradeoff between signal processing employed on satel-
lites versus signal processing incorporated into the
ground network.
• Terrestrial network interfaces.
The above list of problems is not a complete list, but it
identifies some of the key problems for these proposed non-
geosynchronous systems.
Another challenging area in satellite communications go-
ing into the 21st century is hybrid systems. How to best
use combined satellite and terrestrial networks to provide
optimum performance for a variety of existing and new ser-
vices. A perfect example is the proposed new MSS, where
the satellite service is integrated with terrestrial cellular,
PCS and paging networks. To provide worldwide mobile
service to the user, there are a number of network architec-
ture questions which need to be solved including: where do
HLR and VLR databases reside for particular subscribers;
which mobile switches provide billing information, mobile
registration, AIN features such as call screening and call
forwarding. How is interoperability maintained between
various terrestrial systems such as GSM or AMPS-D and
the satellite system? In the network management area, one
may have separate network management systems for given
terrestrial cellular systems and the satellite system. In a
hybrid system architecture some integration of both net-
work management systems needs to be considered. There
are also questions of how interoperability is maintained be-
tween different functions in a hybrid system. For example,
operation in-building from the satellite system may be dif-
ficult in the case of an MSS. Under what conditions should
operation be changed from the satellite to a terrestrial sys-
tem needs to be resolved in this example. Many similar
questions dealing with which portions of the network han-
dle which functions need to be resolved in such hybrid
network configurations.
In the new broadband worldwide FSS systems being
proposed, extensive terrestrial networks connecting gate-
way stations are likely to be involved. Such networks will
be used for network management, signaling, billing and
administrative functions, and possibly backhaul of traffic.
The integration of such terrestrial networks to ensure both
functional and standards interoperability will be one of the
key problems which needs to be addressed, especially for
worldwide operation. One of the challenges for these FSS
systems as mentioned in the previous section will be to
determine what functions will be carried out on satellites
and what functions will be carried out in the ground net-
work. This may be especially important in the broadband
FSS, where millimeter wave frequencies that have high rain
losses are used. For those applications requiring high avail-
ability in regions where rain is more predominant, new so-
lutions need to be found for the FSS to provide the required
quality of service. This may require alternate routing via
 L.S. Golding / Satellite communications systems move into the twenty-first century
intersatellite links, use of diversity ground stations, or some
other solution. Low delay transport may also be needed for
certain applications. This may require routing some traffic
over the terrestrial network and some traffic over the satel-
lite system to meet the requirements for that application.
Broadband multimedia requirements will present many new
performance challenges that did not have to be faced for
more conventional voice and low-speed data applications.
As we enter the 21st century, satellite communications
systems are moving to provide new services in the DBS,
MSS, and FSS, with new network architectures, new tech-
nology, and new levels of integration with terrestrial net-
works. In addition, integration of functions is taking place
such as combining navigation and communications and sur-
veillance and communication. It is an exciting time with
many new systems being proposed resulting in many new
and exciting challenges that need to be met.
107
Leonard S. Golding is currently a Vice-President
at Hughes Network Systems, a subsidiary of GM-
Hughes Electronics Corporation. He is in charge
of Systems Engineering at HNS, and has been in-
volved in directing and working on projects in
DBS, MSS and new multimedia FSS programs.
He also has been involved in terrestrial wireless
communication projects including PCS systems
such as PACs and broadband WLL systems in the
millimeter wave bands. He also oversees HNS’
standards activities and is involved in new business development activ-
ities. He is a fellow of the IEEE, has served on numerous professional
and industry committees as well as having over 40 publications and 10
patents. He received his doctorate at Yale University and undergraduate
degrees at Columbia University.