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Essay On The History Of Satellite Communication

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History of Satellite Communications The first idea of satellite communication came from an article in 1945 named Wireless World, where Author C. Clarke described the use of manned satellites in 24 hour orbits to distribute television programs. However, the first person to carefully evaluate the technical and financial aspects of such a venture was John R. Pierce of Bell Telephone Laboratories (Whalen, n.d.).
In a 1954 speech and 1955 article, Pierce described the usefulness of a communications "mirror" in space, a medium-orbit "repeater" and a 24-hour-orbit "repeater." In comparing the communications capacity of a satellite, which he estimated the capacity at 1,000 simultaneous telephone calls, and the capacity of the first …show more content…

This subsystem receives signals from earth, amplifies the signal received, and then transmits the signal to another satellite or back to earth.

• Thermal control subsystem keeps active parts of a satellite cool enough function properly by venting excessive heat into space.

• Attitude control subsystem interacts with the propulsion subsystem to keep a satellite in its proper position. If a satellite falls out of position any data, television, or telephone calls it is transmitting or receiving will be interrupted.

• Telemetry and Command subsystem allows operators to monitor and control the satellite from the ground.

The Ground Technology Different companies and organizations around the globe use communication satellites. Governments, commercial entities, and individuals use satellite services. For example, we have satellite television from companies like DirecTV, satellite phone service, global positioning systems, imaging, and internet services. To have the ability to access the satellites and services available requires specialized equipment to interact with the satellites. The most important piece of equipment for any satellite service is an antenna, you must have an uplink antenna to send anything to a satellite and a downlink antenna to receive anything.
Future Trends
As with any technology that becomes available to everyone, there is always the chance that it could be replaced by something superior or cheaper. This has a lot of

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