PAGE CONTENTS
Objectives
The overall objective of a SkyLAN cluster is to: 1) provide a more risk-free economical way of deploying geostationary communications satellites, and 2) better support advanced telecom services along with enhanced capability compared with the existing GEO technology.
The objective of this study is to identify potential applications and SkyLAN architectures and quantify the predicted technical and financial benefits as compared to the current GEO technology using larger and more complex satellites.
Challenges
Some key issues considered in the study at this stage are: 1) the role of ISLs in a GEO cluster and 2) the merits of distributing satellite functions over a number of satellites as compared to a non-distributed or ‘integrated’ approach.
The distributed approach features a core infrastructure of satellites which provide common functions (feederlink, user downlink) to a population of daughter satellites interconnected with ISLs
A cost trade-off analysis of distributed versus integrated approach (performed in a previous study) indicates a large initial cost impact for a distributed cluster and a separation of traditional space business into two types :user service and infrastructure service provision.
With the exception of distributing the antenna system required for a contiguous multi-spot beam coverage, the integrated approach is considered the only commercially viable way of starting a cluster system.
Plan
The study is organized into two phases, the first of which is essentially to 1) identify potential applications, and candidate SkyLAN configurations for each the major satellite services (FSS,MSS and BSS) and 2) justify the concept(s) based on an initial financial analysis.
The second phase will develop the selected Phase 1 SkyLAN configuration(s) in more detail including : payload architecture, ISL technology, station – keeping impacts, and a final financial analysis
Current Status
The study has completed the phase 1 work and has started phase 2. Work is underway on the Tasks 5, 6 and 7 of the study.
