ON THE LOGICAL ESTABLISHMENT OF GLOBAL SURVEILLANCE AND COMMUNICATION NETS

摘要

This report establishes criteria for the formation of global surveillance and communication nets and synthesizes some practical examples of these nets. Four properties are postu¬lated which supply all of the necessary and sufficient conditions for the formation of nets. Certain lower bounds are obtained for the numbers of satellites and/or ground stations necessary for establishing worldwide surveillance and communication capability. It is shown that nets can be obtained which are competitive with orbital systems providing only surveillance of the globe. Trade-offs between the number of ground sta¬tions and the number and altitude of satellites in a net are dis¬cussed at length.