The proposed Ku-band non geostationary communication satellite systems

At the 1997 World Radio Conference France was able to secure agreement for Alcatel-Alsthom to launch a non-geostationary satellite system (called SkyBridge) operating at Ku-band, and utilizing the same spectrum as employed by the existing Ku-band geostationary satellites. Provisional power flux density limits for the level of unwanted interference into existing satellite and ground antennas were also adopted and are presently being reviewed by an ITU-R Joint Task Group. SkyBridge subsequently petitioned the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for a license to operate in the United States, causing the FCC to open a window for others to file for such systems. Five new filings were received and this paper describes the six (including Sky-Bridge) designs that have now been proposed. The paper discusses some of the relative merits of the various designs and also the issues of a) interference with the existing geostationary satellites (which may be solvable albeit with the latter losing some capacity) and b) mutual interference among NGSO systems (which may not be solvable in a manner acceptable to their proponents).