Nanosatellites

22 II-2Ground Station Networks

Lucas Rodrigues Amaduro and Rogerio Atem de Carvalho

Reference Center for Embedded and Aerospace Systems (CRSEA), Polo de Inovação Campos dos Goytacazes (PICG), Instituto Federal Fluminense (IFF), Campos dos Goytacazes, Brazil

22.1 Introduction

A ground station, earth station, or earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio waves from astronomical radio sources. Ground stations may be located either on the surface of the Earth or in its atmosphere. Earth stations communicate with spacecraft by transmitting and receiving radio waves in the super high-frequency or extremely high-frequency bands (microwaves). When a ground station successfully transmits radio waves to a spacecraft (or vice versa), it establishes a telecommunications link. Ground stations may have either a fixed or itinerant position, specialized satellite earth stations are used to telecommunicate with satellites. Other ground stations communicate with manned space stations or unmanned space probes. A ground station that primarily receives telemetry data, or that follows a satellite not in geostationary orbit, is called a tracking station. When a satellite is within a ground station's line of sight, the station is said to have a view of the satellite. It is possible for a satellite to communicate with more than one ground station ...