Atmospheric channel simulator for the simulation of propagation impairments for Ka band data downlink

This paper describes a methodology to model the propagation conditions for Earth observation data downlink operating at Ka band. It relies on the use of numerical weather forecast models to perform local high resolution reanalysis of the meteorological conditions on which the propagation effects can be computed. From the meteorological simulations spanning long durations, time series representative of attenuation between an orbiting satellite and a ground station are extracted, knowing orbital and RF characteristics of the system.