Part-A (10 x 2 = 20 Marks)

1. A satellite in earth orbit has a semi-major axis of 6,700 km and an eccentricity of 0.01. Calculate the
satellite's altitude at both perigee and apogee.

2. Assume circular orbit: Using newton's law of gravitation and Newton's second law, determine the
acceleration of a satellite.

3. State Kepler’s third law.

4. State Kepler’s first law.

5. State Kepler’s second law.

6. Define Limits of Visibility.

7. Define apogee and perigee.

8. Mention the apogee and perigee height.

9. Define ascending node and descending node.

10. Define Inclination.

11. Define mean anomaly and true anomaly.

12. What is line of apsides?

13. What is meant by the terms azimuth angle and look angles?

14. What do you mean by sun transit outage?

15. Mention the 3 regions to allocate the frequency for satellite services.

16. Define prograde and retrograde orbit.

17. What is meant by right ascension of ascending node?

18. State Newton’s law of gravitation.

19. Calculate the radius of circular orbit for the period of one day.

20. Name the Keplerian element set.

21. Distinguish between GEO system and LEO system.

22. What do you understand from the term geostationary satellites?

23. What is geostationary orbit?

24. Give the advantage of geostationary orbit.

25. What are the two types of launch vehicle?

26. Give the two segments of basic satellite communication.

 Earth segment (or) ground segment
 Space segment

27. What are the various subsystems of Satellite Communication?

The bus subsystems are: the physical structure, power subsystem, attitude and orbital control
subsystem, thermal control subsystem, and command and telemetry subsystem.
Satellite Payload can be further divided into the transponder and the antenna subsystems.

28. What do you mean by the term transponder?

In a communications satellite, the equipment which provides the connecting link between the
satellite’s transmit and receive antennas is referred to as the transponder. It is a single
communication channel which is formed by a series of interconnected units.
A typical transponder bandwidth is 36 MHz, and allowing for a 4-MHz guard band between
transponders, 12 such transponders can be accommodated in the 500-MHz bandwidth.

29. What do you mean by Pitch axis?

Movement of a spacecraft about an axis which is perpendicular to its longitudinal axis. It is the
degree of elevation or depression.

30. What is Roll axis?

For an equatorial orbit, movement of the satellite about the roll axis, moves the antenna footprint
north and south. The roll axis is tangential to the orbit and lies along the satellite velocity vector.

31. Define the term payload?

The payload refers to the equipment used to provide the service for which the satellite has been
launched. A communications satellite payload consists of the communications equipment that
provides the relay link between the up- and downlinks from the ground The payload comprises of a
repeater and antenna subsystem and performs the primary function of communication. The repeater
has two types 1. Transparent repeater 2.Regenerative Repeater.

32. What is meant by passive attitude control?

It refers to the use of mechanisms which stabilize the satellite without putting a drain on the
satellite’s energy supplies. At most, in frequent use is made of these supplies, for example, when
thruster jets are impulsed to provide corrective torque. Examples of passive attitude control are spin
stabilization and gravity gradient stabilization.

33. What are the needs for station keeping?

Station keeping, is the process required to maintain a satellite in its proper orbit location. Station-
keeping maneuvers must be carried out to maintain the satellite within set limits of its nominal
geostationary position. There are a number of perturbing forces that cause an orbit to depart from
the ideal keplerian orbit.
For the geostationary case, the most important of these are the gravitational fields of the moon and
the sun, and the non-spherical shape of the earth, and also solar radiation pressure and reaction of
 the satellite itself to motor movement within the satellite.

34. What is an OMT?

Polarization discrimination also may be used to separate the transmit and receive signals using the
same feed horn. For example, the horn may be used to transmit horizontally polarized waves in the
downlink frequency band, while simultaneously receiving vertically polarized waves in the uplink
frequency band. The polarization separation takes place in a device known as an ortho-coupler, or
orthogonal mode transducer (OMT).

35. What is TWTA?

The TWTAS are widely used in transponder to provide the final output power required to the trans
tube & its power supplies.

36. What is the need for temperature control in Satellites?

The need for temperature control is to maintain a constant temperature inside the satellites. Because,
the important consideration is that the satellites equipment should operate as nearly as possible in a
stable temperature environment. Thermal blankets and shields may be used to provide insulation.
Radiation mirrors are often used to remove heat from communication payload. These mirror drum
surrounded the communication equipment shelves in each case and provide good radiation paths.

37. Define Momentum Bias.

Spin stabilization may be achieved with cylindrical satellites. The satellite is constructed so that it is
mechanically balanced about one particular axis and is then set spinning around this axis. For
geostationary satellites, the spin axis is adjusted to be parallel to the N-S axis of the earth. In these
dual-spin spacecraft, spin stabilization is obtained using spinning flywheels, which are termed as
momentum wheels. The average momentum of these wheels is known as momentum bias.

38. What is a polarization interleaving?

Overlap occurs between channels, but these are alternating polarized left hand circular & right-
hand circular to reduce interference to acceptable levels. This is referred to as polarization
interleaving.

39. What data can be measured by a TTC?

The tracking, telemetry, command, and monitoring (TTC&M) subsystem provides essential
spacecraft management and control functions to keep the satellite operating safely in orbit.
 Tracking refers to the determination of the current orbit, position, and movement of the
spacecraft.
 The Doppler shift of the beacon (or the telemetry carrier) is monitored to determine the rate
at which the range is changing (the range rate).
 Angular measurements from one or more earth terminals can be used to determine
spacecraft location
 The range can be determined by observing the time delay of a pulse or sequence of pulses
transmitted from the satellite. Acceleration and velocity sensors on the satellite can be used
to monitor orbital location and changes in orbital location.

The telemetry function involves the collection of data from sensors on-board the spacecraft and the
relay of this information to the ground.
40. What is the function of Command system in TTC?
Command data are relayed from the command receiver to other subsystems to control such
parameters as antenna pointing, transponder modes of operation, battery and solar cell changes, etc.
The elements on the ground include the TTC&M antenna, telemetry receiver, command transmitter,
tracking subsystem, and associated processing and analysis functions.

41. What is meant by frequency reuse?

In satellite communication systems, multi beam transmission techniques have been widely adopted
to increase transmission data rates. As a well-known multi beam solution, a four-color frequency
reuse (FR4) scheme where adjacent beams are allocated with non-overlapping frequency spectrum
(or different polarizations) is adopted to mitigate the co-channel inter-beam interference.
To further enhance the spectral efficiency of satellite communications, the more aggressive full
frequency reuse (FFR) schemes, where frequency resources are reused across neighboring beams,
have been considered to increase the total available bandwidth in each beam as that has been done
in terrestrial cellular systems.

42. Define Nutation Dampers.

Nutation, which is a form of wobbling, can occur as a result of the disturbance torques and/or from
misalignment or unbalance of the control jets. This nutation must be damped out by means of
energy absorbers known as nutation dampers.

43. What is the use of jets in satellite communication?

Active attitude control is required with three-axis stabilization. Control jets or reaction wheels are
used, either separately or in combination, to provide correction and control for each of the three
axes.(roll, pitch, yaw)

44. Define the term bus.

Bus: The bus refers to the basic satellite structure itself and the subsystems that support the satellite.

45. Define Despun.

The entire spacecraft rotates for spin-stabilized satellites that employ omnidirectional antennas.
When directional antennas are used, which is the prevalent case, the antenna subsystem must be
despun, so that the antenna is kept properly pointed towards earth.
The despun platform is driven by an electric motor in the opposite direction of the satellite spin, on
the same spin axis and at the same spin rate as the satellite body, to maintain a fixed orientation for
the antennas, relative to earth.

46. What are the basic requirements of an earth station antenna?

 The antenna must have a low noise temperature.
 The ohmic losses of antenna must also be maximum.
 The antenna must be rotated or steered easily so that a tracking system can be employed to point
the antenna beam accurately.
 The antenna radiation must have a low side lobe level to reduce interference from unwanted
signals and also to minimize interference into other satellites and terrestrial systems.
 The antenna must have a high directive gain.
47. Mention various subsystems present in the space segment.
• Bus: The bus refers to the basic satellite structure itself and the subsystems that support the
satellite. The bus subsystems are: the physical structure, power subsystem, attitude and orbital
control subsystem, thermal control subsystem, and command and telemetry subsystem.
• Payload-- provides the relay link between the up- and downlinks from the ground. Divided into
the transponder and the antenna subsystems.

48. What are the main functions of a spacecraft management?

The main functions of a space craft management are given below.

 To. control the orbit and attitude of the satellite.

 To monitor the status of all the sensors in the satellite.
 To switch on/off some sections in communication system.

49. What are the batteries used in satellite?

All spacecraft must also carry storage batteries to provide power during launch and during eclipse
periods when sun blockage occurs. During eclipse, power is provided by two nickel-cadmium (Ni-
Cd) long-life batteries, which will deliver 830 W.

50. What is the primary power of satellite?

The primary electrical power for operating the electronic equipment is obtained from solar cells.
The radiation on a satellite from the sun has an intensity averaging about 1.4 KW/m 2. Solar cells
operate at an efficiency of 20–25% at beginning of life (BOL), and can degrade to 5–10% at end of
life (EOL), usually considered to be 15 years. Individual cells can generate only small amounts of
power, and therefore, arrays of cells in series-parallel connection are used.