Processing Satellites

Abstract

With few exceptions, satellite communications systems today employ conventional nonprocessing satellites that are often referred to as "bent pipes in the sky." These satellites merely act as nonlinear (TWT) amplifiers that transmit on the downlink the same signals plus noise (frequency shifted) that it receives on the uplink. It is now clear that the "micro-processor revolution" will impact on satellite technology and result in a new generation of communication satellites with various on-board digital processing. The orbiting experimental military satellites Les-8/9 are the first-of the new generation of processing satellites. Many more such satellites are now being considered with increasingly complex digital processing on the satellites. For military applications these on-board processing capabilities are listed below in increasing order of complexity.