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英文资料与中文翻译 Satellites 1. OVERVIEW A satellite is a radiofrequency repeater. New-generation satellites are regenerative; that is, they have onboard processing capability making them more of an intelligent unit than a mere repeater (more is said of onboard processing in Sec. 2.9). This capability enables the satellite to condition, amplify, or reformat received uplink data and route the data to specified locations, or actually regenerate data onboard the spacecraft as opposed to simply acting as a relay station between two or more ground stations. A typical satellite with onboard processors is the NASA Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) shown in Fig. 1.1. It was part of the payload on the Space Shuttle Discovery launched on September 12, 1993. According to NASA, its satellite weighs 3250 lb (1477.3 kg) and measures 47.1 ft (14.36 m) from tip to tip of the solar arrays and 29.9 ft (9.11 m) across the main receiving and transmitting antenna reflectors, with a height of 15.2 ft (4.63 m) from the spacecraft separation plane to the tip of the highest highest antenna. The solar arrays provide approximately 1.4 kilowatts. The main communication antennas are a 7.2-ft (2.19-m) receiving antenna and a 10.8-ft (3.29-m) transmitting antenna. We describe more about satellite components’ design later in this chapter,a statelite comprises several individual equipment called a transponder a term derived from transmitter and responder. The block diagram shown in Fig. 1.2 may represent a transponder unit. As seen in the figure, a transponder may be described as a system composed basically of a bandpass filter required to select the particular channel’s band frequencies, a frequency translator that changes frequencies from one level to another, and an output amplifier. Once amplified, the channels are recombined in an output multiplexer for the return transmission. All these devices must be stable ove