Hughes Aircraft Company

Hughes Electronics Corporation

The Boeing Company

Rosen Motors, L.p.

The Directv Group, Inc.

Other

Capstone Turbine Corporation

Harold A Rosen

Parthasarathy Ramanujam

James D Thompson

Steven O Lane

Robert E Vaughan

Scott B Pano

Robert W Bosley

Ying J Feria

Thomas Hudspeth

Donald C D Chang

Ming U Chang

Arnold L Berman

Alois Wittmann

Daniel Bakholdin

Claude Khalizadeh

Glenn N Caplin

Weizheng W Wang

Victor S Reinhardt

Wah L Lim

Andrew L Strodtbeck

Jennifer L Vollbrecht

Joshua Maxwell Rutheiser

Harmon C Fowler

William D Beightol

Mark T Austin

William Grayer

Seymour N Rubin

Joseph J Kubicky

Todd K Citron

A Dorian Challoner

Mon N Wong

Paul J Tatomir

John I Novak, Iii

Jeremiah O Salvatore

John W Smay

Jeffrey W Willis

Gregory D Kroupa

Chak M Chie

Lisa Kuo

Krishnan K Raghavan

Fritz Steinberg

Stephen F Sichi

Allan F Ahrens

Barry Fishman

Daniel D Villani

Chris C Pearson

Brian R Jensen

Mike T Trujillo

Gregory C Busche

Scott P Barnes

Charles Curello

Sasha J Courtade

William R Olson

David J Rosmann

H Clark Bell, Jr

Leeor Pressman

David S Kaplan

Parthasarathy Ramamujan

A method and apparatus for the control of the attitude of earth orbiting satellites and the orbit and attitude control of a novel gravitational wave detection satellite configuration located near the sun-earth Lagrangian points L3, L4 and L5, utilizing the control of solar radiation pressure by the use of electrically controllable variable reflection glass panels to provide the torques and forces needed.

Satellite control system using electrically controllable variable reflection glass panels

A method and system for communication with a mobile platform is provided. An antenna system coupled to a transmitter for use in providing a communication channel to a mobile user includes a first linear transmit array of radiating horns, a second linear transmit array of radiating horns, and at least one reflector coupled to at least one of the first linear transmit array and the second linear transmit array, the at least one reflector configured to reflect illumination from the first and second linear transmit arrays to form a communication channel for the mobile user.

Systems and methods for directing communication signals to mobile platforms

An antenna array system for directing and steering an antenna beam is described in accordance with the present invention. The antenna array system may include a feed waveguide having a feed waveguide length, at least two directional couplers in signal communication with the feed waveguide, at least two pairs of planar coupling slots along the feed waveguide length, and at least two horn antennas.

Antenna array system for producing dual circular polarization signals utilizing a meandering waveguide

A method for implementing a satellite fleet includes launching a group of satellites within a launch vehicle. In an embodiment, the satellites are structurally connected together through satellite outer load paths. After separation from the launch vehicle, nodal separation between the satellites is established by allowing one or more of the satellites to drift at one or more orbits having apogee altitudes below an operational orbit apogee altitude. A satellite is maintained in an ecliptic normal attitude during its operational life, in an embodiment. The satellite's orbit is efficiently maintained by a combination of axial, radial, and canted thrusters, in an embodiment. Satellite embodiments include a payload subsystem, a bus subsystem, an outer load path support structure, antenna assembly orientation mechanisms, an attitude control subsystem adapted to maintain the satellite in the ecliptic normal attitude, and an orbit maintenance/propulsion subsystem adapted to maintain the satellite's orbit.

Satellites and satellite fleet implementation methods and apparatus

The invention provides a novel, low-cost, spin-stabilized lander architecture capable (with appropriate system scaling tailored to the attributes of the target) of performing a soft-landing on a solar-system body such as Earth's Moon, Mars, Venus, the moons of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, selected near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, comets and Kuiper belt objects and even large human-made objects, and also moving about on the surface of the target solar-system body after the initial landing in movement akin to hopping.

Spin-stabilized lander

A communication system has a high altitude communication device that has an antenna for directing beams to a fixed cell pattern with a polarity of cells. A specific pattern of cells having the same communication resource is provided. Cells having the same resource may be separated. The antenna is shaped to suppress interference with locations having the same resource. The areas not having the same resource are not suppressed to allow the system to have maximum capacity and allow a smaller antenna aperture.

Fixed cell communication system with reduced interference

A system includes a satellite fleet (FIG.), in which each satellite receives uplink signals from an uplink hub (), and transmits downlink signals in at least one directed beam (). In an embodiment, downlink signals include television content, which is transmitted within a frequency range between about 3.7 and 4.2 Gigahertz. The satellites follow Molniya orbits (-FIG.), orbit nodes are equally separated, and the satellite phasing is maintained to provide continuous communication within a coverage area. A system also includes user equipment systems (FIG.), which include highly-directional, non-tracking antennas () adapted to receive the downlink signals. In an embodiment, a method includes the satellites maintaining orbit phasings, with respect to other satellites, so that the satellite enters an active orbit segment and initiates transmission of downlink signals as a second satellite exits an active orbit segment and ceases transmission of the downlink signals.

Molniya orbit satellite systems, apparatus, and methods

Methods and apparatus are provided for stabilizing the phase and gain of an amplifier in a power pooling arrangement. A pilot signal combining a reference carrier frequency with a reference sideband frequency is passed through the amplifier via an adjustable phase shifter and an adjustable attenuator in the amplifier input line. A portion of the amplified pilot signal is coupled from the output of the amplifier and mixed with the reference frequency. The remaining audio frequency signal is compared to a reference (input) audio signal to determine phase and gain changes during amplification in the amplifier. Phase and gain control signals are developed from this comparison, and are fed back to the adjustable phase shifter and adjustable attenuator, respectively, in order to compensate an incoming signal for phase and gain variations in the amplifier.

Amplifier gain and phase stabilizer

A communication system has a high altitude communication device that has an antenna for directing beams to a fixed cell pattern with a polarity of cells. A specific pattern of cells having the same communication resource is provided. Preferably, cells having the same resource are separated. The antenna is shaped to suppress interference with locations having the same resource. The areas not having the same resource are not suppressed to allow the system to have maximum capacity and allow a smaller antenna aperture.

An improved satellite communication device and system are provided. The satellite communication device uses yaw or roll-yaw steering to linearize angular track of uplink cells; one-dimensional linear 'ratcheting' in an uplink antenna to maintain resource allocation of uplink cells along antenna columns; phased-array downlink antennas which can track earth-fixed downlink cells while compensating for the yaw (or roll-yaw) satellite steering; and variable rate TDMA service among downlink cells in a footprint. As a result, system overhead for performing new resource allocations between satellite handovers is minimized, thereby reducing resource management and increasing system capacity. Flexible bandwidth/capacity assignment of both uplink and downlink resources to earth locations via linear cell ratcheting, uplink RF peaking switch, and data-driven variable-TDMA downlink phased-arrays, is provided.

Satellite communication system using linear cell tracking

A method for communicating and a communications system apparatus are disclosed. The apparatus comprises a communications platform and a gateway communicatively coupleable with a terrestrially-based network. The communications platform is disposed in a stratospheric location and transponds information between at least one of a plurality of user terminals and the gateway in essentially a bent pipe fashion. The method comprises the steps of receiving a first signal from the user terminal having an antenna in a stratospherically-based communication platform that maintains an apparent position relative to the user terminal within a beamwidth of a user terminal antenna and transponding the first signal from the stratospherically based communications platform to a gateway ground station.

GEO stationary communications system with minimal delay

A multimode transmission system using TDMA provides a plurality of satellite services to a ground station terminal. These services include timing beacon synchronization, multi-cast/broadcast data service, calibration data, and point-to-point data service. The multimode transmission system uses a TDM switch to generate a TDMA signal having a plurality of TDMA transmission frames. Each TDMA transmission frame includes a plurality of downlink frame time slots. Each time slot may be of variable length and is dynamically allocated to an individual satellite service based upon demand. The TDMA signal is then broadcast using an advanced transmit antenna system, which requires beam-shaping and beam power control features, to enable TDMA switching between shaped beams and spot beam modes of the antenna. These antenna features allow for the dynamic partitioning of satellite system capacity between wide-area broadcasts and localized point-to-point service and efficient utilization of the satellite transmission power.

Multimode transmission system using TDMA

A light weight fuel tank for a hydrogen powered airplane used as a platform for communication repeaters for communication services. An outer spherical shell member of a sandwich configuration surrounds an inner thin walled spherical shell member in which the liquid hydrogen is contained. A radial gap between the shell members is evacuated to a high vacuum. The facing surfaces of the shell members are coated with a low emissivity material. Electrical heaters are provided to control the evaporation rate of the hydrogen to match the fuel usage and to prevent icing during ascent and descent of the airplane.

Light weight hydrogen tank

Growing community of inventors

Santa Monica, CA, United States of America

Harold A Rosen