The characteristics include interference and rain resilience, terminal size, data rates, remote coverage and whether it is reserved for governmental use.
[3] As with any satellite communication link, the data rate that can be achieved with a terminal is dependent on the gain of the parabolic antenna.
Therefore, X band provides a good compromise between terminal size and data rates while maintaining resilience to rain fade.
This is in contrast to satellites in commercial bands which typically provide fixed beams for areas of high density of users.
Therefore, X band satellites are able to support users in remote areas with little or no infrastructure and in mid ocean away from land and shipping lanes.
[4] The fleet includes four high performance Skynet 5 satellites with 160W TWTAs providing up to 8W/MHz and an active receive antenna capable of creating multiple uplink beam patterns.
[8] International partners participating on the program are Australia, Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and New Zealand.
[11] SICRAL (Sistema Italiano per Comunicazioni Riservate ed Allarmi) is Italy’s satellite system for military communications.
[13] DC-MS Series 2 consists of 2 triple-transponder global-beam X-band payload, operated by Delta Communications.