A Novel in-orbit Test Method for High Throughput Multi-beam Communication Satellite

During the in-orbit test (IOT) of high throughput multi-beam satellite (HTS) with traditional method, the test engineer is in the gateway and only the performance of the user beam where the gateway is located can be tested. If the test engineer wants to test the performance of other user beams, it is necessary to go to the place of the other user beams coverage and conduct the IOT with portable satellite station. For the HTS with dozens or even hundreds of user beams, the cost of IOT is very high and quite time consuming. This paper presents a novel IOT method which modifies the transmitting beacon antenna to transceiver global horn and bias the satellite to let the user beam under test point to the gateway. Thus, all the user beams can be tested at gateway thanks to the global coverage of beacon horn antenna and huge cost and time of IOT can be saved.