Satellite Communication

Introduction

A satellite is a smaller object that is built for collecting information about the happenings in the space. Satellite communication on the other hand, is the process of sharing information between the satellite and the earth's stations. This communication ensures that people on earth are being updated about the small to big happenings in the space. In simple words, satellite communication is an electromagnetic way of making contact with space and collecting information for research purposes.

Definition of satellite communication

Satellite communication refers to the process of sending and receiving electromagnetic waves for constructing communication between the earth stations and the space. The signals from the satellites directly come into the radar of the space stations located on earth and help people to study the smaller to bigger space things on earth. In simple words, the process of satellite communication entirely depends on the global telecommunication system to create links between the satellite launched in space and various space stations on the earth (Tropea & De Rango, 2022).

The communication system of satellites depends on the analog and digital signals for the earth’s relay. Sometimes, the process of communication follows data encoded in various forms, starting from voice to video.

Figure 1: Satellite communication

The process of communication in satellites entirely depends on two basic components the ground segment and the space segment. The ground segment involves key components like mobile transmission, ancillary equipment and receptions. On the other hand, the space segment involves a satellite and the uplink and downlink signals from the satellite launched into the space (Tutorialspoint, 2022). After a satellite is launched into space, it amplifies the signal it receives from the spade and transmits it back to the space stations on earth for research purposes.

Need for satellite communication

Satellite communication follows two kinds of propagation, the ground wave propagation and the sky wave propagation. The ground wave propagation ensures that the frequency is set to fewer than 30 MHz for making the connection with the satellite placed above the troposphere of earth. The sky wave communication on the other hand follows a standard bandwidth of 30-40 MHz for contacting satellites placed over the ionosphere of earth. Satellite communication is an extremely needed communication for collecting information about the happening in the space (Tutorialspoint, 2022). Making contact with the space is a long way process that follows destinations beyond the line of human sight.

The process of satellite communication allows people on earth to continue space research, especially for measuring the interstellar threats on earth. Satellites also serve a few commercial purposes where the bandwidth connection and network connectivity of earth have been updated over the years based on the satellite connection in space. Further, overcoming the limitations of space has become seamless with the help of satellite communication which benefits humanity in multiple aspects.

Satellite communication: work process

Figure 2: Work process of satellite communication

The work process for satellites is divided into three basic steps. In the first step, the first step, a satellite space station receives the radio wave that has been propagated by a station that is situated at the earth’s service. After receiving the signal from the earth’s centre, the satellite amplifies or processes the signal and retransmits it to another center of the earth’s service (Cai et al. 2021). At the last stage, the received amplified or reflected radio wave is distributed to multiple centres that are situated at the earth’s surface. In operating such processes, it is required to keep in mind that the signals exchanged between two ground-based stations are neither organized nor transmitted by any satellite present in the earth’s orbit.

Satellite communication: Categories

The communication that has been established with the inclusion of a satellite orbiting in space is classified into two distinctive categories. The explanations of these two categories are as follows:

One-way Satellite communication

One-way satellite communication is referred to as such type of communication held between two stations that are situated on earth with the help of a satellite situated in the orbit of the earth in space. In order to establish such kind of satellite communication, radio wave propagation is generated by the any-one ground-based station (Furqan & Goswami, 2022). This propagation of radio waves has been received by satellite and retransmitted to the second earth-based centre. This kind of satellite communication is generally found to be unidirectional.

Two-way Satellite communication

In the case of forming a two-way Satellite communication, communication is mainly formed between two earth-based centres to establish a point to point of connectivity among these two centres. Unlike One-way Satellite communication, this kind of communication forms two uplinks and downlinks between the two earth-based stations with the placement of a space station that is a satellite middle of this communication link.

Advantages and disadvantages of satellite communication

• Advantages: The main advantage that is provided by satellite communication is that the network is considered fully controllable manually. This provides the scope for building a user-friendly network. In addition, every corner of the earth can be covered by this kind of communication where the instalments of circuits are considerably easy and the circuits offer excellent elasticity as well.

• Disadvantages: The core disadvantage identified in the process of establishing the expenditure at the initial stage is considerably expensive (Ortiz-Gomez et al. 2022). Additionally, the propagation and the interfaces are required to be taken care of as this satellite communication creates a chance of blockage of frequencies.

Conclusion

The present tutorial has focused on offering a fair understanding of satellite communication as it has been referred to as a smaller object that is placed in a specific orbit in the space in order to transmit or reflect the radio waves propagated by the earth-based stations with specific amplitude. Throughout this tutorial, the work process of satellite communication has been discussed with the proper exemplification of the classification of two distinct categories of satellite communication.