Analysis of RFI From Mega-Constellation NGSO Communication Satellites to Ground Radio Astronomy Systems

Satellite communication systems (SCSs) have recently evolved into mega-constellations with thousands of non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellites. They offer an advantage of global coverage with low latency for communication and information access but impose an increased risk of harmful radio frequency interference (RFI) to a ground-based radio astronomy system (RAS). RFI assessment for such a scenario is crucial and the existing approaches which are based on simulations do not scale well with a large NGSO satellite constellation size and a long RAS observation time. To overcome such limitations, this paper develops analytical models of RFI from the NGSO SCSs to the ground RASs under various system conditions. These models are extended to future scenarios with sky radio quiet zone deployments. General applicability and accuracy of the analytical models are corroborated by comparing them with simulation-based results for several NGSO SCSs, RAS locations and RAS observation directions.