Satellite ground station services, Institute for Telecommunications Research (ITR)
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Satellite ground station services

ITR currently has two operational satellite facilities. One is a steerable, receive/transmit S-band antenna, and the other is a steerable, receive-only X-band antenna. ITR is able to provide access to these facilities for research purposes, as well as for commercial use by industry.

Further details about the facilities can be obtained from Associate Professor Adrian Barbulescu

 

S-Band facility

With ITR's involvement in the Cooperative Research Centre for Satellite Systems (CRCSS), and the major development involving the implementation of a research satellite, FedSat, an S-band tracking facility was developed at ITR to allow it to be the primary ground station for telemetry, tracking and control (TT&C).

The facility has undertaken a number of other missions involving tracking other satellites, and has recently been refurbished.

The 3.0m steerable antenna operates in the S-band frequency range, and the corresponding indoor facility provides one of few such systems in the southern hemisphere.


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X-Band facility

  ITR has operated this 6.8m steerable antenna for several years, and commercially since 2003 where it has been receiving data from the French SPOT satellites under contract. The system nominally operates daily, and is set up to receive earth resource satellite data.

Again, this facility is one of few available in the southern hemisphere.

Download a PowerPoint presentation (11Mb) of the FedSat Satellite, the first satellite tracked by our ground station.