A 20/30 GHz personal access satellite system design

A strawman design for a personal access satellite system (PASS) to provide low-bit-rate voice and data services to users in the contiguous United States (CONUS) in the early 2000s using the 20/30 GHz band is presented. As currently envisaged, the PASS system links suppliers throughput CONUS with users in 142 fixed spot beams of 0.35° beamwidth in one satellite hop; user-to-user communication requires two satellite hops. Through the use of time-division multiple access (TDMA) on the forward link and frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) on the return link, this system will support 2000 duplex voice channels at 4.8 kb/s with a satellite of moderate size and weight. For the user terminal, four antenna designs that trade-off compact size, cost, and electrical performance are described. Last, an experimentation plan taking advantage of planned Ka-band satellite capabilities is outlined