Satellite Ground Systems Glossary
55 terms total — 24 showing — Last updated 15 Sep 2026
Look Angle
The azimuth and elevation angles at which a ground-station antenna must be pointed to establish a line-of-sight radio path to a given satellite.
ACM
A technique in which the modulation scheme and forward error correction code rate of a satellite link are dynamically ad...
Antenna Pointing Loss
Signal degradation resulting from imperfect alignment between a ground station antenna's beam axis and the target satell...
AUPC
A closed-loop system that automatically adjusts a ground station's transmit power to compensate for signal fading, most...
Autotrack
An automated antenna control mode in which the ground station antenna continuously tracks a satellite's position using a...
C/N
The ratio of the received satellite carrier signal power to the total noise power in a specified bandwidth, expressed in...
co-location
The practice of placing two or more satellites at or near the same geostationary orbital slot, typically within ±0.1°, o...
Downlink
The radio frequency transmission path from a satellite to an earth station or user terminal. Contrasted with uplink, whi...
DVB-S2
The widely adopted international standard for broadband satellite transmissions, specifying modulation, channel coding,...
DVB-S2X
The extended version of the DVB-S2 satellite transmission standard, offering additional modulation schemes, wider rollof...
Eb/N0
Energy per bit to noise power spectral density ratio; a normalised signal quality metric used in digital satellite commu...
EIRP
A measure of the power a transmitting antenna radiates in a specific direction, combining transmitter output power and a...
EIRP Density
The EIRP per unit of bandwidth, expressed in dBW/Hz or dBW/4 kHz, used to characterise the spectral intensity of a trans...
Ephemeris
A table or data file giving the precise position and velocity of a satellite as a function of time, used by ground stati...
Fade Margin
The additional signal power, expressed in decibels, built into a link budget above the minimum demodulation threshold to...
FDMA
A channel access method in which multiple ground stations share satellite transponder capacity by transmitting on differ...
FEC
Forward Error Correction; a channel coding technique in which redundant data is added to a transmitted signal to allow t...
Frequency Coordination
The international regulatory process by which satellite operators notify and negotiate with each other and with national...
G/T
Figure of merit for a receiving system, expressed as the ratio of antenna gain (G) to system noise temperature (T) in dB...
GEO
Geostationary Earth Orbit; a circular equatorial orbit at approximately 35,786 km altitude where a satellite appears sta...
geostationary orbit
A circular Earth orbit at an altitude of approximately 35,786 km above the equator in which a satellite's orbital period...
HPA
A high-power radio frequency amplifier at a ground station that boosts the uplink transmit signal to the power level req...
ICD
A formal engineering document that defines the technical interface between two systems or subsystems—such as a ground st...
Inclined Orbit Operations
A cost-saving operational mode for aging geostationary satellites in which north–south station-keeping is discontinued,...
interference
Any unwanted signal that degrades the quality or availability of a desired satellite communication link, arising from co...