INTERFACE SATELLITE

• Main Authors: NEVIUS, Daniel, KLUPAR, Aidan, FAURE, Joel, MARLOW, Weston, Alan, CLARK, Anthony
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 14.12.2022
• Subjects: AIRCRAFT; AVIATION; COSMONAUTICS; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSMISSION; TRANSPORTING; VEHICLES OR EQUIPMENT THEREFOR; WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS

A multi-user satellite system provides communication services to external satellites. This satellite system provides in-orbit access points that can be used by the external satellites to offload data instead on relying directly on ground stations. One approach to such communication is to use a set of interface satellites ("converter satellites") that provide a gateway between a constellation of satellites that together provide communication services to one or more ground stations, but that do not necessarily have the communication capabilities to communicate with external satellites. In this way, the interface satellites can be put in compatible orbits with external satellites and provide communication gateways that can be used to offload data from the external satellites to ground stations. As external satellites change their communication methods, the interface satellites can be reconfigured or new compatible interface satellites can be launched, without having to modify the constellation of satellites.