Space-Based Communication Infrastructure
Published:
Role: Research and thesis supervision ยท Chair of Spacecraft Systems, Technical University of Munich
Most constellation studies start from an architecture and evaluate its performance. This one runs the other way: start from demand - how much data Earth observation, navigation, science and crewed programmes will need to move through space in the coming decades - and ask which orbital and spectral architectures could serve it.
Posed that way, the binding constraint is rarely the radio link. Coverage-to-cost ratios separate the candidate architectures cleanly by altitude, inclination and frequency band, but the ceiling on deploying any of them is launch capacity, not spectrum or power. That makes infrastructure planning a question about the launch market as much as about spacecraft design.
Supervised theses
Designing a Future Space-based Communication Infrastructure: From Demand Forecasting for Space Communication Networks to Assessing Architectures through Tradespace Exploration
Built a global bandwidth demand forecast to 2060 and linked it to a tradespace of 64 LEO architectures across altitude, inclination and frequency band. An X-band constellation at 600 km and 90° inclination gave the best coverage-to-cost ratio. Launch capacity turned out to be the key constraint on meeting demand.