Design tools for communication satellite systems

A brief review of some recently developed software tools available at ESA to solve a variety of problems related to the mission definition and system analysis of current and projected communications satellites is given in this paper. These tools have proved to be indispensable during the critical definition phase preceeding the start of hardware development. Some of the more significant classes of computer programs used are presented with a summary of their salient features. Both in-house developed programmes and software available from other European sources are described. An indication of how these tools are used for system analysis is given by means of examples related to current ESA projects. The emergence of new trends in system design is mentioned with the description of some new software tools currently under development at ESA.