Revolutionary next generation satellite communications architectures and systems

This paper describes possible revolutionary next generation communications satellite missions and architectures. The satellite communications evolutionary background, current GSO's (geostationary orbit satellites), 'Little', 'Big' and 'Broadband' NGSO's (non-GSO's), and enabling satellite technologies are briefly discussed. Converging technological and economic forces will drive us inevitably to the next decade's communication satellite systems and network architectures. The increasing pace of new capabilities, Moore's law, and the convergence of key technologies over the next few years provide the next generation satellite revolution 'push', while the global and local commercial communications demand and economics, orbit slot and spectrum scarcity, rapidly dropping communications costs, privatization, multiple market entries and competitive shakeouts provide the 'pull'. The result of these forces is a rapid evolution of communications satellites and network architectures that will depart significantly from today's GSO and NGSO systems. The revolutionary next generation architectural paradigms for distributed space systems is described. New system architectures are predicted for GSO's (virtual satellite clusters), NGSO's (multi-mission, hybrid payload constellations, clusters), and the likely next big waves: interlinked hybrid networks, station-keeping, stratospheric platforms (aerostats), micro-nanosatellites and trends towards clusters of large area satellites).