Intelsat stands for International Telecommunication Satellite. The Intel sat organization established in 1964, august 20. It is Washington, DC; USA based international telecommunication Satellite Organization that provides telecommunication services to its member countries throughout the world by means of satellite systems owned by it. Its first satellite was launched on 1965 (termed early bird). The telecommunications services include not only just telephone but also the TV, digital transmission services, telegraphy, telex, computer-to-computer, video conferencing, videotext etc. Infact, INTELSAT system handles these services through more than 700 earth stations spread across more than 155 countries.

The Intel sat had 119 countries as members until 1992. The early development of Intel sat is covered in colico, 1985. First Intel sat was named Early Bird      (Intelsat 1) launched in 1965, which provided 480 voice channels.

Since then Intelsat series I, II, III, IV, V and VI were launched. The Intelsat VI series had a progressive increase in size and capacity. The Intel sat VI had 80,000 voice channels.

Some of important nations of Intelsat are USA, Japan, UK, China and India. Each member country owns a share of Intelsat proportional to its use of the system. A minimum investment for each member country is 0.05%.

The INTELSAT traffic has been increasing day by day and this has been accomplished by INTELSAT through an ensemble of satellites and earth stations operating with a wide variety of modulation techniques to provide diverse services globally. It must be remembered that under one INTELSAT system several satellites are simultaneously in operation because of the global coverage requirement. These INTELSAT networks are controlled from the INTELSAT spacecraft technical control center in Washington, DC.

INTELSAT Network:

INTELSAT is the original “Inter-governmental satellite organization”. It once owned and operated most of world’s satellites used for international communications; and still maintains a substantial fleet of satellites.

It is evident that with the new generation INTELSAT satellite systems the telecommunication capabilities have increased tremendously. It can be seen that the INTELSAT 1, the world’s first commercial communication satellite was launched in 1965 which was designed to operate for 1.5 years and 480 half circuits. By contrast

INTELSAT VI is designed to operate for 10 years and provide up to 80,000 half circuits.

The tremendous jump in capability over six generations of satellites is due largely to the continuing refinement of sophisticated shaped beam satellite antennas.

INTELSAT designs also incorporate advances in microwave integrated circuits, satellite propulsion, solar cells, and batteries. INTELSAT – VI introduces a microprocessor based control system and the satellite controlled communication switching.

The main reason responsible for this is the decrease in microelectronics circuitry cost though the launch cost may be higher. The life extension to orbit for 15-18 years has been new ‘breakthrough’ developments in satellite technology. There is a tremendous pressure in INTELSAT to shift to digital. Intelsat believes that its new digital tariff structure which reward digital effectiveness, particularly digital circuit multiplication should simulate a rapid transition model over the next ten years. The most rapid transition model assumes that 80% of all traffic will be digital by 1996.

INTELSAT Timeline:

• Interim organization formed in 1964 by 11 countries
• Permanent structure formed in 1973.
• Commercial ‘spin-off’, new skies satellite in 1998.
• Full “privatization” by April 2001.

• Written by T ARUNKUMAR.
• In category Engineering.
• 15 years ago.

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