ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of satellite communications services, looks at the systems that provide those services, and discusses some of the developments in satellite technology and its applications. It also discusses the strengths and weaknesses of fiber optic cable. The chapter explores an estimation of the role that satellite communications is likely to play in the future. The satellite provides digital transmission and uses time division multiple access, a transmission technique in which earth stations take turns sending data through a common transponder. For satellite applications such as reconnaissance, weightlessness or vacuum experiments, material processing and space manufacturing activities, and localized weather and resource imaging, the low earth orbit, less than 500 miles high, is the easiest and most economical alternative to the geostationary orbit. As with any other telecommunications transmission, the transmission of signals over a satellite communication system always results in some degradation of the quality of the information carried by the signal.
