The impact of miniaturized RF technologies on payload architectures of future digital communications satellites

This paper addresses the impact of miniaturized RF technologies on emerging communications satellite payload architectures with microwave switching, onboard signal regeneration, and multiple-beam operation with reconfigurability and steering. RF hardware miniaturization using gallium arsenide (GaAs) monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) not only makes some of these complex systems feasible, but offers the additional advantages of improved performance, enhanced reliability, and significant size and weight reduction. GaAs MMIC components have been space-qualified and have been flown or are planned to be flown on operational spacecraft. In addition, several transponder subsystems for onboard satellite applications have been successfully demonstrated using GaAs MMIC technologies. This paper also discusses a generic payload architecture for future digital satellite communications and presents key technology implementation issues and examples for miniaturized RF subsystems