Analysis and Comparison of new Downlink Technologies for Earth Observation Satellites

Abstract

New generation of Earth observation sensors are creating an increasing amount of data which has to be delivered from space-to-ground. Additionally, many applications require timely availability of this sensor data. As new link technologies have been made available in the last years and data rate requirements are still increasing a revise of the conventional direct-downlink technology at X-band frequencies is essential. This work aims in a trade-off of the available direct-downlink technologies for satellites in low, polar orbits. Generally, there are two approaches to fulfill the requirement of timely delivery of a huge amount of data from space-to-ground. This is either increasing space-to-ground contact time resulting in a more complex ground station network or increasing carrier frequency whereas link reliability is limited by atmospheric effects. In this work different approaches like using K$_a$-band or utilizing ground station network with additional locations are compared against each other.