Placement of gateways near service beams

Abstract

A method and system are presented for operating a multibeam satellite system involving positioning a plurality of service beams associated with a plurality of service beam coverage areas and positioning a feeder beam associated with a feeder beam coverage area. The feeder beam coverage area is at a proximity to at least one service beam coverage area. The feeder beam coverage area includes at least one gateway. Each of the plurality of service beam coverage areas uses a color. The at least near service beam coverage area uses at least one color from the plurality of colors. The feeder beam uses at least one color, excluding the at least one color used by the at least one near service beam coverage area.

1 . A spot beam satellite comprising:
 an antenna system configured to create a beam pattern having a plurality of different colors, such that signals associated with each color are orthogonal to signals associated with each of the other colors, the spot beam satellite being configured to receive data from a plurality of service beams and from a feeder beam, each service beam having an associated service beam coverage area and the feeder beam having an associated feeder beam coverage area,   wherein the feeder beam coverage area is proximate to one or more of the service beam coverage areas,   wherein the feeder beam and a service beam associated with each of the one or more service beam coverage areas proximate to the feeder beam are allocated a disjoint set of colors from the beam pattern, and   wherein a set of colors allocated to the feeder beam includes all colors from the beam pattern not assigned to a service beam associated with each of the one or more service beam coverage areas proximate to the feeder beam.