A high-throughput satellite ( HTS ) is a communications satellite which provides more throughput than a classic fixed service satellite (FSS). An HTS provides at least twice, though usually 20 times or more, throughput for the same amount of allocated orbital spectrum , thus significantly reducing cost-per-bit. ViaSat-1 and EchoStar XVII (also known as Jupiter-1 ) provide more than 100 Gbit/s of capacity, which is more than 100 times the capacity offered by a conventional FSS satellite. When it was launched in October 2011, ViaSat-1 had more capacity (140 Gbit/s) than all other commercial communications satellites over North America combined.
31-411: EchoStar XVII or EchoStar 17 , also known as Jupiter 1 , is an American geostationary high throughput communications satellite which is operated by Hughes Network Systems , a subsidiary of EchoStar . It is positioned in geostationary orbit at a longitude of 107.1° West, from where it is used for satellite internet access over HughesNet . EchoStar XVII was built by Space Systems/Loral , and
62-438: A band (NATO K band ) transponders which is used to cover North America . EchoStar XVII was launched by Arianespace , using an Ariane 5ECA carrier rocket flying from ELA-3 at Kourou . The spacecraft was launched at 21:36 UTC on 5 July 2012. The MSG-3 weather satellite was launched aboard the same rocket, mounted below EchoStar XVII, which was atop a Sylda 5 adaptor. The launch successfully placed both satellites into
93-779: A band transponders. NSS 6 , launched in December 2002 and positioned at 95° East, contains only K u -band transponders with a footprint on Indonesia ( Sumatra , Java , Borneo , Celebes , Bali , Nusa Tenggara , Moluccas ). NSS 6 is intended to be replaced by SES-12 at the same location, which launched in June 2018 and carries 54 K u -band transponders. The IPSTAR 1 satellite, launched in 2004 also uses K u band footprints. Other satellites that provides K u band covers Indonesia are MEASAT-3b , JCSAT-4B , AsiaSat 5 , ST-2 , Chinasat 11, Koreasat 8/ABS-2 , SES-8 , Telkom-3S , and Nusantara Satu . Other ITU allocations have been made within
124-547: A geosynchronous transfer orbit . EchoStar XVII used its own propulsion system to manoeuvre into a geostationary orbit. High-throughput satellite The significant increase in capacity is achieved by a high level frequency re-use and spot beam technology which enables frequency re-use across multiple narrowly focused spot beams (usually in the order of hundreds of kilometers), as in cellular networks, which both are defining technical features of high-throughput satellites. By contrast traditional satellite technology utilizes
155-753: A television network's studio for editing and broadcasting . The band is split by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) into multiple segments that vary by geographical region. NBC was the first television network to uplink a majority of its affiliate feeds via K u band in 1983. Some frequencies in this radio band are employed in radar guns used by law enforcement to detect vehicles speeding, especially in Europe. Segments in most of North and South America are represented by ITU Region 2 from 11.7 to 12.2 GHz ( Local Oscillator Frequency (LOF) 10.75 to 11.25 GHz), allocated to
186-399: A broad single beam (usually in the order of thousands of kilometers) to cover wide regions or even entire continents. In addition to a large amount of bandwidth capacity HTS are defined by the fact that they often, but not solely, target the consumer market. In the last 10 years, the majority of high-throughput satellites operated in the K a band (26.5–40 GHz ), however this is not
217-415: A defining criterion, and at the beginning of 2017 there were at least 10 K u band (12–16 GHz) HTS satellite projects, of which 3 had launched and 7 were in construction. Initially, HTS systems used satellites in the same geosynchronous orbit (at an altitude of 35,786 km) as satellite TV craft (with satellites such as KA-SAT , Yahsat 1A and Astra 2E sharing TV and HTS functionality) but
248-403: A driving power for the global satellite backhaul market which is expected to triple in value – jumping from the 2012 annual revenue of about US$ 800 million to $ 2.3 billion by 2021. Ku band The K u band ( / ˌ k eɪ ˈ j uː / ) is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in the microwave range of frequencies from 12 to 18 gigahertz (GHz). The symbol
279-523: A heavy rain area usually gives poor results. This problem can be solved by using an appropriate link budget when designing the wireless communication link. Higher power can overcome the loss to rain fade . Measurements of rain attenuation in Indonesia have been done for satellite communication links in Padang, Cibinong, Surabaya and Bandung. The DAH Model for rain attenuation prediction is valid for Indonesia, as
310-584: A higher powered signal from the satellite to compensate. Therefore, the K u band satellites typically require considerably more power to transmit than the C-band satellites. Another weather-caused degradation called "snow fade" is not specific to the K u band. It is due to snow or ice accumulation on a dish significantly altering its focal point. The satellite operator's Earth station antenna requires more accurate position control when operating at K u band due to its much narrower beam focus compared to C band for
341-449: Is also less vulnerable to rain fade than the K a band frequency spectrum. There are, however, some disadvantages of the K u band system. Around 10 GHz is the absorption peak due to orientation relaxation of molecules in liquid water. Above 10 GHz, Mie scattering takes over. The effect is a noticeable degradation, commonly known as rain fade , during heavy rain (100 mm/h). This problem can be mitigated by transmitting
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#1732858589610372-457: Is based on the LS-1300 satellite bus . It measures 8.0 metres (26.2 ft) by 3.2 metres (10 ft) by 3.1 metres (10 ft), with 26.07-meter (85.5 ft) solar arrays which were deployed after launch, and generates a minimum of 16.1 kilowatts of power. The spacecraft had a mass at liftoff of 6,100 kilograms (13,400 lb), and is expected to operate for fifteen years. It carries sixty K
403-421: Is short for "K-under" (originally German : Kurz-unten ), because it is the lower part of the original NATO K band , which was split into three bands (K u , K , and K a ) because of the presence of the atmospheric water vapor resonance peak at 22.24 GHz, (1.35 cm) which made the center unusable for long range transmission. In radar applications, it ranges from 12 to 18 GHz according to
434-447: Is the ITU model. The DAH model has become an ITU recommendation since 2001 (Recommendation No. ITU-R P.618-7). This model can create a 99.7% available link so that K u -band can be applied in Indonesia. Use of the K u -band for satellite communications in tropical regions like Indonesia is becoming more frequent. Several satellites above Indonesia have K u -band transponders , and even K
465-724: The Astra satellites. The 11.7 to 12.5 GHz segment is allocated to the BSS ( broadcasting satellite service ). Australia is part of ITU Region 3 and the Australian regulatory environment provides a class license that covers downlinking from 11.70 GHz to 12.75 GHz and uplinking from 14.0 GHz to 14.5 GHz. The ITU has categorized Indonesia as Region P, countries with very high rain precipitation. This statement has made many people unsure about using K u -band (11 – 18 GHz) in Indonesia. Using frequencies higher than 10 GHz in
496-579: The Rayleigh criterion , the diameter of a parabolic dish required to create a radiation pattern with a given angular beamwidth ( gain ) is proportional to the wavelength , and thus inversely proportional to the frequency. At 12 GHz a 1-meter dish is capable of focusing on one satellite while sufficiently rejecting the signal from another satellite only 2 degrees away. This is important because satellites in FSS (Fixed Satellite Service) service (11.7-12.2 GHz in
527-441: The round-trip delay for internet protocol transmission via a geosynchronous satellite can exceed 550 ms which is detrimental to many digital connectivity applications, such as automated stock trades, on-line gaming and Skype video chats. and the focus for HTS is increasingly shifting to the lower Medium Earth orbit (MEO) and Low Earth orbit (LEO), with altitudes as low as 600 km and delays as short as 40ms. Also,
558-563: The FSS ( fixed satellite service ), uplink from 14.0 to 14.5 GHz. There are more than 22 FSS K u band satellites orbiting over North America, each carrying 12 to 48 transponders , 20 to 120 watts per transponder, and requiring a 0.8-m to 1.5-m antenna for clear reception. The 12.2 to 12.7 GHz (LOF 11.25 to 11.75 GHz) segment is allocated to the BSS ( broadcasting satellite service ). BSS (DBS direct broadcast satellites ) normally carry 16 to 32 transponders of 27 MHz bandwidth running at 100 to 240 watts of power, allowing
589-466: The K u band to the fixed service (microwave towers), radio astronomy service, space research service, mobile service, mobile satellite service, radiolocation service (radar), amateur radio service , and radionavigation. However, not all of these services are actually operating in this band and others are only minor users. Compared with C-band , K u band is not similarly restricted in power to avoid interference with terrestrial microwave systems, and
620-517: The U.S.) are only 2 degrees apart. At 4 GHz (C-band) a 3-meter dish is required to achieve this narrow angular resolution. Note the inverse linear correlation between dish size and frequency. For K u satellites in DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite) service (12.2-12.7 GHz in the U.S.) dishes much smaller than 1-meter can be used because those satellites are spaced 9 degrees apart. As power levels on both C and K u band satellites have increased over
651-496: The antenna's actual receiving element, mounted in front of the dish (and pointed back towards its face); if the waves are more intense, fewer of them need to be collected to achieve the same intensity at the receiving element. A major attraction of the band over lower frequency microwave bands is that the shorter wavelengths allow sufficient angular resolution to separate the signals of different communication satellites to be achieved with smaller terrestrial parabolic antennas . From
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#1732858589610682-473: The consumer broadband market, some are also offering services to government and enterprise markets, as well as to terrestrial cellular network operators who face growing demand for broadband backhaul to rural cell sites . For cellular backhaul, the reduced cost per bit of many HTS platforms creates a significantly more favorable economic model for wireless operators to use satellite for cellular voice and data backhaul. Some HTS platforms are designed primarily for
713-447: The enterprise, telecom or maritime sectors. HTS can furthermore support point-to-multipoint applications and even broadcast services such as DTH distribution to relatively small geographic areas served by a single spot beam. A fundamental difference between HTS satellites is the fact that certain HTS are linked to ground infrastructure through a feeder link using a regional spot beam dictating
744-598: The formal definition of radar frequency band nomenclature in IEEE Standard 521–2002. K u band is primarily used for satellite communications , most notably the downlink used by direct broadcast satellites to broadcast satellite television , and for specific applications such as NASA 's Tracking Data Relay Satellite used for International Space Station (ISS) communications and SpaceX Starlink satellites. K u band satellites are also used for backhauls and particularly for satellite from remote locations back to
775-437: The higher costs associated with spot beam technology, the overall cost per circuit is considerably lower as compared to shaped beam technology. While K u band FSS bandwidth can cost well over $ 100 million per gigabit per second in space, HTS like ViaSat-1 can supply a gigabit of throughput in space for less than $ 3 million. While a reduced cost per bit is often cited as a substantial advantage of high-throughput satellites,
806-473: The location of possible teleports while other HTS satellites allow the use of any spot beam for the location of the teleports . In the latter case, the teleports can be set up in a wider area as their spotbeams' footprints cover entire continents and regions like it is the case for traditional satellites . Industry analysts at Northern Sky Research believe that high-throughput satellites will supply at least 1.34 TB/s of capacity by 2020 and thus will be
837-454: The lower path losses of MEO and LEO orbits reduces ground station and satellite power requirements and costs, and so vastly increased throughput and global coverage is achieved by using constellations of many smaller, cheaper high-throughput satellites. SES's O3b constellation was the first MEO high-throughput satellite system, launched in 2013, and by 2018 more than 18,000 new LEO satellites had been proposed to launch by 2025. Despite
868-448: The lowest cost per bit is not always the main driver behind the design of an HTS system, depending on the industry it will be serving. HTS are primarily deployed to provide broadband Internet access service (point-to-point) to regions unserved or underserved by terrestrial technologies where they can deliver services comparable to terrestrial services in terms of pricing and bandwidth. While many current HTS platforms were designed to serve
899-412: The power of its uplinks and downlinks can be increased. This higher power also translates into smaller receiving dishes and points out a generalization between a satellite's transmission and a dish's size. As the power increases, the size of an antenna's dish will decrease. This is because the purpose of the dish element of the antenna is to collect the incident waves over an area and focus them all onto
930-454: The use of receiver antennas as small as 18 inches (450 mm). Segments in those regions are represented by ITU Region 1, and they are the 11.45 to 11.7 and 12.5 to 12.75 GHz bands are allocated to the FSS ( fixed satellite service , uplink 14.0 to 14.5 GHz). In Europe K u band is used from 10.7 to 12.75 GHz (LOF Low 9.75 GHz, LOF High 10.6 GHz) for direct broadcast satellite services such as those carried by
961-403: The years, dish beam-width has become much more critical than gain. The K u band also offers a user more flexibility. A smaller dish size and a K u band system's freedom from terrestrial operations simplifies finding a suitable dish site. For the end users K u band is generally cheaper and enables smaller antennas (both because of the higher frequency and a more focused beam). K u band