The Symphonie System and Its Utilizations
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The Space Congress® Proceedings 1976 (13th) Technology For The New Horizon Apr 1st, 8:00 AM The Symphonie System And Its Utilizations A. Langemeyer Symphonie Executive Comittee F. Pene Symphonie Executive Comittee Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.erau.edu/space-congress-proceedings Scholarly Commons Citation Langemeyer, A. and Pene, F., "The Symphonie System And Its Utilizations" (1976). The Space Congress® Proceedings. 2. https://commons.erau.edu/space-congress-proceedings/proceedings-1976-13th/session-8/2 This Event is brought to you for free and open access by the Conferences at Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Space Congress® Proceedings by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE SYMPHONIE SYSTEM AND ITS UTILIZATIONS A. LANGEMEYER F. PENE SYMPHONIE EXECUTIVE COMITTEE ABSTRACT In 1967, the Governments of the Federal Republic of Germany and France decided to jointly develop a After the successful completion of the SYMPHONIE telecommunication satellite system and to launch project development phase, which resulted in the two satellites. One year later the French-German injection into geostationary orbit of two flight industrial consortium CIFAS, in which the French models (December 1974 and August 1975), the French- companies Societe Nationale A£rospatiale (SNIAS), German programme is carrying on in the aim of Thomson -CSF, Society Anonyme de Telecommunication setting up and performing a great number of diffe (SAT) and the German companies Messerschmitt- rent experiments demonstrating the capability of Bttlkow-Blohm (MBB), Siemens, AEG-Telefunken parti this 4/6 GHz satellite system to comply with all cipate, was charged with the development and cons kinds of utilizations. truction of the satellites. Based upon the capability and the performances The discontinuance by the ELDO program of the offered by the spacecrafts (three-axis-stabilized) EUROPA II launcher, which had originally been des and their telecommunication payload (two repeaters tined to launch the two SYMPHONIE satellites, and each with 90 MHz bandwidth associated with two spot the subsequent change to the NASA launcher Thor beam transmitting antennae) together with several Delta 2914 led to a delay of only half a year. earth stations (primary stations, secondary trans Thanks to the good cooperation between NASA and portable stations) there is an ambitious programme its contractors on the one side, and SYMPHONIE on of experiments, the main categories of which are the other side the initial difficult technical listed below : problems - such as vibration specifications, trans fer orbit parameters and launch site security rules- - experimental telecommunications programme inclu could be solved. ding the French-German tests and other tests with or by foreign countries (e.g. ISRO-programme) ; On December 19, 1974 at 2.39 hrs (GMT) the first flight model wa<? successfully launched, and ori - technological test programme to evaluate the August 27, 1975 at 1.42 hrs (GMT) the second performances of the spacecraft (e.g. three-axis- flight model. After having been positioned the two stabilization subsystem) ; satellites entirely fulfilled their telecommunica tion missions. The only failures to be recorded - demonstrations in the frame of various shows and to-date are the breakdown of the redundant local expositions such as the Paris Air Show in le Bour- oscillator. Uncritical disturbances of the teleme- get and TELECOM 75 in Geneva, and occasional TV try/teleconrttar.f3 <=ysl:em were caused by charging transmissions for special events ; effects which could not yet be fully clarified. - educational and humanitary utilizations such as the UN experiment, the educational TV programme in 2. DEFINITION AND MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS OF THE African countries, and teleconferences ; SYMPHQNIE SYSTEM - preoperational utilizations by France, Germany The Symphonic System, in operations swice the be and by/with foreign countries covering various ginning of 1975, consists of : types of transmissions (TV, telephone, data). with two identical satellites As a conclusion, the present status of the SYMPHO a) The space segment is to be drawn NIE utilization programme clearly shows the real stationned at 11°5 W, the attention need for such an experimental system together with essentially to - the three axis stabilized space the the fact that it strongly contributes to the de craft by a semi-active system allowing actually monstration of European know-how and technology in orbit control within +_ 0°25 E/W and N/S (2 correc the field of space communications systems. tions per year) and an attitude control within + 0°3 (1 to 2 correction? per week) - the telecommunications payload of two identical wide-band repeaters 1. INTRODUCTION consisting 8-19 (90 MHz) associated with two transmission antennae satellite's transponder is fully controlled, and providing two dedicated earth receiving areas with therefore no longer only operates in the linear an EIRP bether than 29 dBW (edge). range of its characteristic curve, the optimiza tion of the transmission parameters is necessary b) The ground segment based upon two primary sta in order to optimally use bandwidth and satellite tions (so called standard) located in Raisting power for a given minimum transmission quality. (W-G) and Pleumeur Bodou (p) offering identical The influence of the number of carriers, their performances such as a G/T = 31.5 dB/°£ (with a distance from each other and the transmitting dish diametre of 16 ra), uncooled parametric pream power, which determines the distance from the plifiers and 3 KW transmitter. operating point to the saturation point, on the In addition, several stations have been developped signal-to-noise ratio of the telephone channel for the purpose of the utilization plan of Sympho- was experimentally determined. For flight model nie. Among these stations, we will notice for ins 1 these measurements, in multi-carrier operation, tance : resulted in a capacity of 768 channels for the - four 8,8 m diametre receiving stations (G/T = transponder b, and of 624 channels for the trans - 26.5 dB/°l) dedicated to the Educational TV pro ponder d. The different capacity of the two gramme in Africa, transponders is a result of their different fre - one 5 m diametre T/R station (G/T = 20 dB/°K, quency plans. The frequencies of the operation 250 W transmitter) used to experiment digital carriers were therefore arranged in such a way telephone technics and visiophonie (teleconference that intermodulation products fall together with system), operation carriers. The cross-talk attenuation was - one 3 m diametre T/R station providing one voice not allowed to fall below 60 dB, channel + telex (or a fac-simile transmission). A further test series dealt with the verification Other stations are under development by the time of transmissions of television and sound channels being (ex : two multipurpose T/R station). with optimized transmission parameters. The trans mission of a single TV signal according to speci fications could be valued with quality grade 5, 3. TELECOMMUNICATION TEST PROGRAM i.e. the highest reachable. During further tests one TV channel and. two sound channels were trans 3.1. Verification of the telecommunication speci mitted without reciprocal interference. The fications of the satellite transmission of two TV channels still reached quality grade 4. This verification consists of ten test series : 1 - the satellite's EIRP 3.3. Newer transmission procedures 2 - receiving sensitivity of the satellite (G/T) 3 - bandpass characteristic of the transponders After conclusion of the above-mentioned measure 4 - group delay behavior of the transponders ments transmission procedures are to be tested 5 - stability of frequency conversion with the aid of SYMPHONIE in order to increase 6 - stability of amplification the transmission capacity of satellite links. measuring of nonlinear distortion : 7 - level of intermodulation products This year, for example, a French-developed pro 8 - AM/PM conversion cedure, by which 30 analog channels are to be put 9 - intelligible -crosstalk together into 6 single channels plus two 12- 10 - EIRP, level and frequency stability of the channel systems or one 24-channel system respec beacons tively, is to be tested. The main purpose of this verification is to prove To improve the transmission of TV and sound that the satellite's properties, which had been channels digital procedures for the transmission measured on the ground, did not change while in of TV signals are to be tested. The procedure of orbit. These measurements were carried out by the putting sound channels and a picture channel into Pleumeur Bodou and Raisting stations which are not one carrier is to be examined just as well as the special measuring stations but regular operational integration of sound channels into the sync pulse stations. In some measuring series for example - or by digital coding into the horizontal blanking such as the measuring of the transponder bandpass interval between picture informations. Further characteristic - the influences of the ground tests are to deal with video telephony (picture stations on the measuring results could not be telephone) and with the transmission of four 15 completely eliminated. The observance of the spe kHz sound channels concentrated in 24 telephone cified values could therefore only be confirmed channel carri ers. within the scope of the