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#OnThisDay 1964, The Satellite That Changed Global Communication
▲ 31 r/satellites+5 crossposts

#OnThisDay 1964, The Satellite That Changed Global Communication

On This Day, August 19, 1964, something happened high above Earth that would help change the way the world communicates.

NASA launched Syncom III, the world's first truly geostationary communications satellite.

Unlike satellites that constantly moved across the sky, Syncom III was placed into an orbit where it appeared to remain stationary above one point on Earth.

That meant communication stations could keep their antennas pointed at the same place in the sky.

But Syncom III had an even bigger moment coming…

Just two months later, it helped transmit live television coverage of the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games across the Pacific to the United States.

For the first time, millions of people in America could watch events happening on the other side of the Pacific almost as they happened.

🌎 One satellite.

📡 One orbit.

📺 A world suddenly felt much smaller.

Syncom III helped demonstrate the enormous potential of 24-hour satellite communications and paved the way for the global communications systems we rely on today.

🚀 Before smartphones.

📺 Before global satellite TV.

🌎 There was Syncom III.

The world was getting connected.

u/sajiasanka — 1 day ago
▲ 11 r/satellites+4 crossposts

Free open-source PO/PTD tool for dual-reflector antennas (GNU Octave/MATLAB)

Hi everyone,

I’d like to share the Dual Reflector Designer, a free and open-source beta tool for the design and analysis of axisymmetric dual-reflector antennas.

It currently supports:

• Cassegrain, Gregorian and ring-focus configurations
• Reflector design and ray tracing
• Physical Optics (PO) and PTD edge diffraction
• Automated convergence testing
• Far-field pattern visualization
• Parallel CPU computing and GPU acceleration

It runs on Windows with GNU Octave, so no MATLAB license is required. MATLAB is supported as well. For most users, the recommended way to get started is the provided Windows installer.

The video shows selected Cassegrain benchmark cases compared with TICRA GRASP 24.0 Student Edition. In these particular tests, the resulting patterns agreed closely, while speedups of up to 135x were measured under the tested settings. This is an independent, non-commercial comparison and not a general claim about the full commercial GRASP product.

An unusual aspect of the project is its development process: I defined the requirements, tested and benchmarked the software, and reviewed the results, while Codex with GPT-5.6 Sol generated the implementation. I did not manually write the source code.

It’s still a beta and I’m continuing to improve it, so let me know what you think.

Here is the GitHub Link.

youtube.com
u/Reflector_Antenna_87 — 5 days ago
▲ 7 r/satellites

anybody know what this is?

Is it a spacex satellite or meteor? saw it on virginia beach at 21:20 on august 15th, thanks.

u/Acrobatic_Cicada_639 — 5 days ago
▲ 1 r/satellites

Need satellite imagery of (2004/2014/2020) for a Chattogram, Bangladesh project, any advice?

I am working on a project extracting building footprints for Chattogram port, across 2004, 2014, and 2020. What level of resolution would i be needing for it?

I know tha I can't buy straight from Maxar, I need to go through a reseller. Does anyone have a solid one to recommend, for South Asia, or Bangladesh?

Thanks!

reddit.com
u/OkAdeptness420 — 5 days ago
▲ 0 r/satellites

What if you could literally buy sunlight at 2 AM? ☀️🛰️

I came across Reflect Orbital, a startup working on satellites that can reflect sunlight back to Earth after sunset.

But honestly, the technology wasn’t the first thing that caught my attention.

It was the positioning.

They’re not just saying:

“We build satellites with mirrors.”

They’re essentially saying:

“Buy sunlight on demand.”

That’s a completely different way of communicating the same technology.

As someone interested in marketing, I find this fascinating because it shows how much positioning can change the way people perceive a product.

People might forget the technical details.

But “buy sunlight at night” is an idea they remember.

It got me thinking:

Is this actually a great example of marketing/positioning, or is the technology itself so crazy that the messaging naturally becomes interesting?

Would love to hear what people here think — marketing genius, genuine innovation, or both?

u/kajol_Jaiswal — 8 days ago
▲ 20 r/satellites+1 crossposts

Sanity Check: University 4.7 GHz C-Band INSAT-3DS Ground Station Build

Hello,
My university team (me and friends from B.tech EEE dept) are finalizing a funded pitch to build a permanent ground station in Chennai, India. The objective is to capture and decode live C-band weather imagery and telemetry directly from INSAT-3DS (~4.7 GHz).

Before we send the BoM for funding pitch, our mentor recommended posting a sanity check on different forums and subreddits.

We are in SRMIST KTR (main campus), chennai trying for INSAT-3DS

The Architecture:
(since the satellite dish will be at the roof pointing at the sattelite, and the project lab is 2 floors down)

  • Antenna: 1.8m Prime Focus Mesh Dish on a non-penetrating roof mount with concrete ballast.
  • RF Front End: C-Band feedhorn with a scalar ring feeding into a standard C-Band LNA.
  • Digitization (On-Roof): Airspy R2 or HackRF One connected to an Intel NUC (or Raspberry Pi 5).
  • Enclosure: All electronics housed in a waterproof enclosure, mounted behind the dish for shade. We are thinking of using waterproof nylon cable glands.
  • Data Transport: Cat6 Ethernet running two floors down to the lab.
  • Software Pipeline: SatDump running in server mode on the roof PC, streaming the 10 MSPS IQ data to the lab PC for QPSK demodulation and decoding.
  • The specs of the PC getting the data is not finalized yet but we were considering atleast intel i5(or higher), 12gb ddr4 RAM (or higher and cheaper) and 512 gb storage hdd (or more)

Link Budget Estimate:

  • Target Satellite: INSAT-3DS (74°E)
  • Distance: ~36,000 km
  • Frequency: ~4.7 GHz
  • Estimated Link Margin: ~10 dB (assuming a 1.8m mesh dish at ~55% efficiency).

Where we need your critique:

  1. C-Band Interference: Chennai is a major coastal city with local radar and heavy 5G deployment. Will a standard C-band LNA get saturated, and should we budget for a dedicated cavity bandpass filter before the LNA?
  2. Thermals: Chennai ambient temperatures hit 40°C (104°F). Even in the shade of the dish, will an Intel NUC or Pi 5 thermal-throttle while processing a continuous 10 MSPS QPSK stream inside a sealed box with only a breather vent?
  3. Mechanical Alignment: Any practical tips for perfectly centering a feedhorn on a multi-petal mesh dish without access to professional laser alignment tools?

We appreciate any blunt feedback or teardowns of this plan before we spend institutional money. Thanks.

u/Pheonixrulr — 10 days ago
▲ 0 r/satellites

How does this work?

Have you heard of the crescent dunes project in Las Vegas, NV? Directed sunlight off of mirrors to heat up salt to over 1000 degrees. The project failed due to storage and maintenance reasons. The directed sunlight did heat up the salt though and even incinerated birds flying by. 465 is what I read. Besides all that.

Why would the FCC approve reflect orbital https://www.reflectorbital.com? Knowing directed sunlight causes this?

Also, why is it so impossible to believe that the constellation formation of satellites is heating up or creating a heat dome? What are the Crescent Dunes mirrors aimed at now? The sky? Reflecting off the satellites? Maybe if there’s any satellite failures it’s cause of the mirrors?

Is the reflectorbital real?

u/Weary-Sky-8534 — 9 days ago
▲ 8 r/satellites+1 crossposts

Tips on certifications for SATCOM for once my time in the Air Force is up

Hey there y’all. I would like to pick the brain of any current RF/Satcom Engineers or SMEs about certifications or qualifications that would make me a better candidate for internships or jobs while I complete my bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. I plan on transitioning to the Air Force National Guard once my contract expires and will be completing my bachelor’s degree while in the guard. I want to eventually work in the development of satellites but i would hope to at least end up with a job as an RF/Satcom engineer for a defense contractor. Any advice/ideas/suggestions are welcome. Also, any insight on what getting a job similar to this is like would be cool.

reddit.com
u/Careless-Addict-331 — 9 days ago
▲ 73 r/satellites+1 crossposts

India's Indigenous GPS Gets Revival Push With 4 Planned NaVIC Satellite Launches

I hope they plan for more satellites in GEO/GSO orbit. I think 12 satellites fleet will be ideal. (NVS-01,NVS-03,NVS-04,NVS-05,NVS-06 and 7 more). For future i think they should try for global operations too, like for MEO and LEO orbits with a fleet of 38 satellites be ideal? It can be called NaVIC+. in total, a constellations of 50 satellites where it is connected via NaVIC and NaVIC+ .where NaVIC is for India Specific and NaVIC+ is for global operations like GPS,GLONASS,Galileo and BeiDou.

swarajyamag.com
u/PerceptionMurky3704 — 14 days ago
▲ 20 r/satellites+5 crossposts

How to get funding for space hosted payload as high schoolers?

Hey guys, I am part of a high school team in the very early stages of developing a hosted payload intended to make it to space by June 2028 at the latest. The hosted payload will be a custom PCB (probably 50mm x 50mm max) doing a simple tech demo.

We are an independent, currently unsponsored high school team, and need funding to complete this project.

Primarily what we've done was getting reference decisions for hardware families on the custom PCB, and work regarding host selection.

We haven't locked a mission yet, because we don't wanna make a mission with no shot of getting funded and then be at final stages with something ready for space but no money to pay for the slot.

So far, we've looked at general strategies for funding, including crowdfunding websites, government grants, educational grants, corporate sponsorships from businesses benefitting from our mission, and educational discounts from hosts.

We tried looking into getting information regarding funding for cubesat related projects in general, but the only new information we could really find was built in university money or university types of grants.

Our current benefits regarding funding compared to typical include CubeSat teams:

  • Will be able to pay for everything up until final launch slot payment (meaning everything is done payload ready for space ready to be integrated just needs slot payment to the host) with our current money, so any funding we'd need is more of a just pay for this thing that is already at max maturity and ready to go it just needs payment.
  • Our parents have decent financial stability as they are considering paying a decent amount for the final one time payment, with a decent chance of their payments covering the majority to vast majority of the costs.

Assuming the host provides discounts, our estimated budget is around ~90k.

We also found this post regarding another set of high schoolers fundraising for CubeSats and corporations they got money from. Didn't look much into the exact companies yet. CubeSat Funding : r/cubesat

Our main questions are:

  • Any general advice/tips/strategies regarding fundraising for our specific scenario?
  • Any companies that normally fund student stem projects (including high school stem projects) that you'd reccomend and estimations on how much that could raise?
  • Any commercial companies that might benefit from data we obtain that you guys would reccomend as a sponsorship?
  • Any companies whose purpose isn't necessarily funding these types of project but has funded student stem projects before that you guys would reccomend?
  • Any tips in finding these types of companies?

Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks!

reddit.com
u/CantaloupeSwimming77 — 14 days ago
▲ 10 r/satellites

Are these satellites?

We were in our garden in Germany and we suddenly saw all these lights go into different directions. The phone wasn’t moving while filming it was all the lights wandering. I edited the video a bit (turned up brightness and contrast). Now we are wondering what it is. Does anyone maybe know ?

u/Extension-Jello-7518 — 12 days ago