A unifying concept for future fixed satellite service payloads for Europe

The paper discusses the problems of designing communication-satellite systems for trunk telephony, TV services, and specialised services in a European context for the late 1980s and the 1990s. Estimates of required capacity are very uncertain for this time frame, implying a range of very different payload concepts. Some system and payload designs suggested by various authors are compared, and an antenna concept that can adapt to most of these is proposed. This permits a payload design easily adaptable to different traffic needs. In particular, very efficient exploitation of the 14/12/11 GHz bands with good frequency re-use is theoretically obtainable, whilst also providing high-density traffic routes at 30/20 GHz if required.