A Novel Model for Predicting Sun Outage in Satellite Communication

Chao Hu,Lihua Ma,Yanben Han,Xinghua Ma,Jun Pei

doi:10.5539/esr.v7n1p106

Abstract

A sun outage is an interruption or distortion of satellite communication signals caused by interference from solar radiation. There is a serious interference to satellite communication services in a special period of time. In the present paper, a novel model for predicting sun outage that is effective and can greatly improve accuracy and precision of sun outage prediction of earth station in satellite communication is presented.

Highlights

Communication satellites locate at the altitude with tens of thousands of kilometers above the surface of the Earth, so the satellite signals to the ground are very weak
Considering the motion characteristics of the Sun, as for geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) communication satellites, in the northern hemisphere, sun outages occur before the March equinox (February and March) and after the September equinox (September and October), and in the southern hemisphere the outages occur after the March equinox and before the September equinox
The Swiss ephemeris is the high precision ephemeris developed by Astrodienst (Note 2), largely based upon the DExxx ephemerides from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

Summary

Introduction

Communication satellites locate at the altitude with tens of thousands of kilometers above the surface of the Earth, so the satellite signals to the ground are very weak. The Sun radiates strongly across the entire spectrum, including the microwave frequencies (such as C-, Ku- and Ka-band) used to communicate with satellites, and to send high levels of electromagnetic radiation to the satellite It will result in an interruption in or distortion of satellite signals. Considering the motion characteristics of the Sun, as for GEO communication satellites, in the northern hemisphere, sun outages occur before the March equinox (February and March) and after the September equinox (September and October), and in the southern hemisphere the outages occur after the March equinox and before the September equinox At these times, the apparent path of the Sun across the sky takes it directly behind the line of sight between the earth station and the GEO satellite. Based on the Swiss ephemeris, a novel model for predicting the sun outage is proposed in this work

Swiss Ephemeris

Occurrence Condition of Sun Outage

Prediction Procedure of Sun Outage