Only a small handful of futurists enjoy the distinction of serving as the CTO for an FSS operator and when asked to share their thoughts on the technology developments that will have a major impact on the satellite industry, the answers look at two perspectives: end-user applications and technology deployment, and the focus is on the business drivers underpinning future developments before looking at technology advancements. 
 

Business Drivers

“The advancement in television technology will have a significant impact in the satellite industry,” said Alan Young, CTO SES World Skies. “The move to HD television and 3D are being driven by the consumer electronics industry. Today’s screens are far more capable of displaying better images than those just a few years ago. For the first time, the television display is not the limiting factor in image quality. It is now the network that limits the quality. … The televisions which are being produced today are very capable displays. They are thin, consume less power and can display a high frame rate. Somewhere along the line, consumers will want to feed those big screen televisions with high-quality content, which is what satellite technology excels at,” he says.

The pace of improvement in television screens shows no signs of slowing down, as the sets are becoming larger and will have increasingly higher resolutions. “Viewers will need a higher quality feed to keep up with the advancements in the displays,” says Young. “The HD standard only displays 30 pictures per second on the screen. 720p displays sacrifice a little resolution to put up 60 pictures a second. Television screens in the future will be able to display even more pictures per second. Large-screen televisions will also continue to increase in size. It is feasible in the not-so-distant future that screens will be wall-sized, but large-screen TVs show imperfections in the network. They act like magnifying glasses, and it will be easier to see these imperfections, called artifacts, in the video feed. Viewers don’t want to compromise the quality of their image,” he says.

Lincoln Oliveira has served as the CTO for Star One since 2005 and recently was named general director. “We see two main technologies on the horizon that may or shall affect our business. The first one is high-definition and 3-D television. This has already started to impact positively our business in terms of new demands for space segment. Brazil has a large territory, and satellites are key to TV distribution in a country with such dimension,” he says.

The next evolution in video broadcasting is Ultra HD. A raw HD channel requires 1.5 gigabits per second (Gbps) of bandwidth and can be compressed to 4 to 5 megabits per second (Mbps). Ultra HD will provide 16 times the resolution of an HD channel, with a raw data rate of 25 Gbps. Even when an Ultra HD channel is compressed, it is expected to be 80 to 160 Mbps. “That is a massive increase in bandwidth that needs to be transported,” Young says. “In my opinion, you need a managed network to deliver high-quality video. The Internet is an unmanaged network, and because it is a general network which serves all applications, it can’t be tailored just for video. Viewers want to watch programming in the highest quality possible. The future is therefore bright for satellite, because we deliver the highest quality with the highest reliability.”

Thierry Guillemin, senior vice president and CTO, Intelsat, says mobility and global content distribution will be significant business drivers that will have a strong impact on the industry and future technologies. “We are building the first truly global broadband mobility coverage in Ku-band for commercial maritime applications. Satellites under construction like IS-18, IS-19, IS-21, IS-22 and IS-27 all bring to the fleet in the next two years a piece of a global Ku-band coverage contoured to deliver high-power connectivity to the most active shipping lanes around the world. In 2012, this global fabric will be complete. Automatic beam switching technology makes it a seamless worldwide solution for all vessels requiring robust, weather proof, always-on, high-speed access with one network, one provisioning and one IP address,” he says.

Regarding global content distribution, Guillemin says, “We just finished installing state-of-the-art, high-throughput Cisco equipment in all our teleports and points of presence of our IntelsatONE network around the world. This IP/MPLS technology network can pick up customer content in any format in large cities around the world, transport it over our fiber network to any of our teleports, and up from there to any of our satellites for instant delivery worldwide. This is the most ubiquitous one-stop-shop global content delivery network available. It helps our media customers extend their global reach internationally with the bandwidth efficiency you get on a converged MPLS network. It leverages all technologies already available in our teleports, from MPEG-4 MCPC platforms to DVBS-2 modulation,” he says.

The growth of Ka-band spectrum to provide satellite broadband services — long-expected and finally taking a wider hold in the market — also should be a business driver, Oliveira says. “The current Ku-band technology has shown to be good for the enterprise market and not to the consumer one. This is due to low number of users per transponder that can be achieved with the current VSAT technology. There have been significant improvements in the last eight years, but the growing demand for higher throughput have neutralized such improvements. With current architectures and costs, we don’t believe there will be a good business case for the consumer segment using Ku-band. A possible solution to this problem is to use Ka-band, however, it still has a significant amount of uncertainties in a level that we cannot conclude now if we really will be able to make a case. The most we can say is it shall be a good case provided certain conditions are met. One key issue is the throughput per user and symmetry requirements along the 15-year life of the satellite.”

Intelsat also sees Ka-band initiatives, among others, shaping the landscape, says Guillemin. “We are very interested in high-throughput applications, whether in the particular geographies and applications where Ka-band may be an efficient answer, or looking at other solutions where it is not. Overall, we are frequency agnostic but clearly interested in providing more throughput with sustainable, adaptable and economically viable solutions that meet our design standards of resilience and network performance,” he says..

“Ka-band Internet access should be treated as a kind of disruptive technology,” Oliveira says. “This would open room to serve a certain segment of the market which is maybe not so demanding initially, while it would give time to consolidate the technology. The problem with this approach is the size of the risk involved. If you launch a satellite you cannot throw it away if you are faced with a more innovative solution in a short term. You will need to profit from that satellite for its 15-year useful life to pay for your investment, so this second technology we see in our radar screen still demands a lot of thinking prior to take a firm decision to proceed specially in a market like Brazil. But certainly, we see something ahead.”
 

Technology Developments

Antonio Abad, CTO for Hispasat, outlined several technologies the company is considering in its future. “Hispasat has worked extensively in on-board processing technologies that allow flexible and multiplexed connectivity through different satellite spots and provide new services (VoIP, videoconference, etc.) using very simple and standard ground terminals. We are strongly convinced that there is a market which, though is taking longer than we anticipated to develop, will be of great interest in the future,” he says.

Hispasat also is looking at active antennas that would allow the operator to adapt satellite coverages to specific market evolutions. “Flexible payloads, if they reduce cost and schedule, could also be an important step ahead,” says Abad. “The advantage of flexible payloads would be simple: It will allow both generic production of the equipment reducing costs and storage of these generic units that would be tailored to each specific program reducing the lead times and significantly shortening program schedule. Additionally, flexible payloads could be used to reconfigure the satellite in orbit to adapt frequencies and power levels to the market evolution during satellite lifetime. We have also recently analyzed the potential of optical links inside the satellite, not only to replace existing harness but also to transmit low-power RF signals. Larger antennas for Ka-band systems and technologies allowing larger power subsystems — higher efficiency solar cells or batteries — could also be of relevance for some applications in the future,” he says.

Guillemin touched on some of the technologies Intelsat is considering. “The hosted payload technology is a very innovative way of delivering services, especially for government users, much faster and more economically than was ever done before. It is offering the United States and other governments a solution to help close the gap in UHF capability faced by the war fighter. Two UHF payloads integrated on otherwise commercial Intelsat spacecraft are coming online in the next two years in our fleet — one on the IS-22 satellite to be launched in the first half of 2012 for the Australian Defense Force and one on the IS-27 satellite, slated for launch later in 2012. This is only an example of the many future possibilities of this hosted payload technology,” he says.

“In recent years, CBH (cellular-backhaul networks) have expanded throughout the world due in large part to satellite technology. Mobile operators around the world continue to turn to satellite technology for expansion of their network infrastructure. Many innovative developments have increased the efficiency of satellite-enabled CBH, including combining OSI Layer 2 and Layer 3 functionality and providing specialized capability such as TCP acceleration. Capacity pooling and optimization help provide an economical solution to reaching mobile regions. In the future, new CBH opportunities are expected to emerge as mobile operators begin rolling out advanced 3G networks and introduce 4G networks in more developed regions. Many emerging regions that have inadequate fixed-line networking infrastructures are expected to tap into hybrid satellite-wireless networks for their connectivity and communications needs,” he says.

Young also says, “Interference detection and interference avoidance technologies will become increasingly important. Satellite communications works because we have assigned orbital slots and frequencies, but with more people communicating via satellite there are more incidents of satellite interference. Integrated geolocation and carrier identification will become increasingly important, especially in areas where users aren’t as sensitive to the interference they are causing as others are. We are looking at several different technologies for this. Carrier ID at the uplink is one such technology that could have a positive impact on the entire industry.”

The Space Data Association (SDA), a creation of Inmarsat, Intelsat and SES designed to improve the safety and efficiency of space operations, launched its Space Data Center, an automated space situational awareness system located on the Isle of Man, in July. Initial operating capabilities include conjunction assessment for 126 satellites in geostationary orbit owned by the SDA’s founding members. Built on commercial software developed by Analytical Graphics, the Space Data Center now provides conjunction assessment services 197 satellites from 13 geosynchronous satellite operators and 114 operational satellites in low-Earth orbit from seven operators. The system is intended to provide members of the SDA with Web-based access to operational capabilities. The system automatically ingests and processes operator-supplied orbital data and generates automated warning alerts when necessary. It also will support avoidance maneuver planning and facilitate greater data sharing. Once fully operational, the center will be able to support radio frequency interference mitigation for commercial and government satellites in all orbits

Another area that operators would like to see developed is technologies to improve spacecraft performance. “Refueling spacecraft is a long-range topic we are looking at,” Young says. “We continue to be interested in economical solutions to increase satellite payload design flexibility and adaptability in orbit. I also believe that there may be a future for in orbit refueling and servicing under certain conditions,” says Guillemin.

In January, U.S. Space and ATK unveiled its ViviSat joint venture, created to offer satellite life extension services. ViviSat intends to provide geosynchronous satellite operators with in-orbit mission extension and protection services in order to add to the revenue-producing life of its customers’ satellites at a time when nearly 100 major geosynchronous satellites are in the final five years of their life cycle. ViviSat has developed a Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV) designed to dock with orbiting satellites and serve as a back-up propulsion system, enabling satellites that have run out of maneuvering fuel yet still have enough electricity to operate to extend their mission. The joint venture’s services also include: long-term station-keeping and attitude control, relocation, de-orbiting and rescue and re-orbiting.

“When a geosynchronous satellite nears its end of fuel life but has enough electrical power to operate for another two to 12 years, we launch an MEV into space that will actually dock with this satellite,” says ViviSat COO Bryan McGuirk and former senior vice president of media services at SES World Skies. “The beauty of the MEV is, first and foremost, its simplicity. It is a vehicle based on a small satellite bus that ATK has developed for many years. It’s simple because the vehicle does not do anything but connect to the satellite like a jetpack. It does not connect in to the satellite in any other way. It does not connect to the electrical system, and there is no fuel exchange.”

SES also is looking at wider-band transponders that will allow each satellite to deliver more bandwidth,” says Young. “Unlike the enhancements in television technologies which will appear over the next few years, space technologies have more of a 5-, 10- and 15-year development cycle. We might try small steps on different spacecraft, and the timeline to test and implement these technologies is measured in years. … The pace of change in space is much slower than the pace of change on the ground. It is a necessity in our business. Once a satellite is launched it is harder make changes. Although the pace of change is slower, it doesn’t stop us from investigating new technologies.”