INGENIEUR
FEATURE
Evolution of Satellite
Technology for Global
Communication
By Farah Aniza Mohd Nazri, J.S Mandeep, Hafizah Husain, Mardina Abdullah,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
What is a satellite? A satellite is
an object that rotates and revolves
around a planet. Satellites not
only refer to artificial satellites
released in space that serve as
a medium of communication, but
also natural satellites that orbit
the earth such as the moon.
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atellite technology has greatly enhanced
the public telephone system, the internet,
broadcasting, radio, weather, military and
navigation systems among others, such that it has
now changed the way in which humans interact.
Satellites receive signals from ground stations and
bounce the signal back to another earth station.
Communication via satellite occurs either actively
or passively. The function of passive satellites
is only to bounce radio waves received by the
satellites’ ground stations; additionally, they also
serve as active repeater agents that amplify radio
waves, before sending them back to the ground
station. However, most modern day satellites
are used as active satellites [1]. Several types
of active satellites exist such as navigation and
remote sensing satellites. In this article, our focus
is only on communication satellites which are