Study for ESTEC: Traffic routing in a switched regenerative satellite. Task 2: Repeater configurations

Configurations of repeaters suitable to carry forecasted European traffic are derived. Traffic volumes loading a large satellite in the European region up to the year 2000 are used as a design basis. The system would be a follow-on of the ECS system. The analysis is based on a two speed configuration with onboard speed conversion. The 64 Kbits/sec circuits (both telephone and low speed data) and the 2048 Mbit/sec circuits between international transit centres are studied. The 12 to 14 and 20 to 30 GHz bands are advocated. In one configuration all the access are 20 to 30 GHz spot beams in the up and down links. In the other configurations there are also Earth stations using a 14 GHz uplink and 12 GHz exclusive band downlink. Single and dual satellite solutions are considered. The dual satellite solution in the second configuration is preferred.