Throughput of SatCom and Earth Observation Fade-Mitigated Links in X and Ka Bands Simulated from Synthetic Attenuation Time Series

Thanks to the larger bandwidths, satellite systems at higher frequencies are expected to provide higher data throughputs for communications and Earth observation alike. These higher frequencies are however also linked to stronger propagation impairments of the carrier which must be accounted for in the system design. This paper presents a numerical study of military satellite link budgets when moving from X to Ka band. A first approach based on the distributions of the attenuation helps to select the appropriate modulation and coding. A second approach uses recent developments in attenuation synthetic time series to explore two strategies of fade mitigation: adaptive coding for the communication via a geostationary satellite, and site diversity for the download of data from low Earth orbit.