Broadband communication satellite

1. A satellite system comprising:

a receive antenna system to receive one of C-band and Ku-band signals;

a transmit antenna system to transmit one of C-band and Ku-band signals; and

a payload section coupled between said receive antenna system and said transmit antenna system and comprising a digital transponder operative to route digital sub-channels from the receive antenna system to the transmit antenna system, the digital transponder comprising a channelizer module operative to divide a plurality of user channels of a baseband input signal into about 250 sub-channels, each sub-channel comprising a bandwidth of about 0.5 MHz, and a recombiner module operative to combine the sub-channels into a plurality of downlink output channels, each downlink output channel comprising a bandwidth of about 125 MHz.

2. The satellite system of claim 1 , wherein said receive antenna system receives C-band signals at approximately 6 GHz and said transmit antenna system transmits C-band signals at approximately 4 GHz.

3. The satellite system of claim 1 , wherein said receive antenna system receives Ku-band signals at approximately 14 GHz and said transmit antenna system transmits Ku-band signals at approximately 11 GHz.

4. The satellite system of claim 1 , wherein said transmit antenna system provides at least one of multibeam coverage and shaped area coverage.

5. The satellite system of claim 1 , wherein each of said receive antenna system and said transmit antenna system comprises deployable mesh reflectors, which range in diameter from about 6 meters to about 30 meters and are operative to provide at least one of multibeam coverage and shaped area coverage.

6. The satellite system of claim 5 , wherein each mesh reflector comprises a pair of doubly curved geodesic nets arranged back to back in tension across the rims of a deployable graphite-epoxy ring truss.

7. The satellite system of claim 1 , wherein said digital transponder provides circuit-switch communication between said receive antenna system and said transmit antenna system.

8. The satellite system of claim 1 , wherein the sub-channels are routed by a switch module configurable to support point-to-point, multicast, and broadcast communications operations.

9. A method of communication by satellite comprising:

transmitting signals to receive antennas on a satellite, said signals being at one of C-band frequencies and Ku-band frequencies;

routing digital sub-channels corresponding to said received signals from said receive antennas to transmit antennas via a digital transponder payload,

dividing a plurality of user channels of a baseband input signal via a channelizer module into about 250 sub-channels, each sub-channel comprising a bandwidth of about 0.5 MHz,

combining the sub-channels into a plurality of downlink output channels via a recombiner module, each downlink output channel comprising a bandwidth of about 125 MHz; and

transmitting signals at one of C-band frequencies and Ku-band frequencies from said transmit antennas.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein said transmit antenna system provides at least one of multibeam coverage and shaped area coverage.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein said transmitted beams provide shaped area coverage.

12. The method of claim 9 , wherein each of said receive antennas and said transmit antennas comprise deployable mesh reflectors, which range in diameter from about 6 meters to about 30 meters and are operative to provide at least one of multibeam coverage and shaped area coverage.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein each mesh reflector comprises a pair of doubly curved geodesic nets arranged back to back in tension across the rims of a deployable graphite-epoxy ring truss.

14. The method of claim 9 , wherein said digital transponder provides circuit-switch communication between said receive antennas and said transmit antennas.

15. The method of claim 9 , wherein routing digital sub-channels further comprises configuring a switch module for point-to-point, multicast, and broadcast communications operations.