Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

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THE HISTORY OF SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS
Memorandum for the Record
SUBJECT: Advanced Communication Technology Satellite (ACTS) program meeting,
October 13, 1983
PRESENT: Committee staff: R. Byerly, T. Clark;
NASA: R. Lovell and J. Madison
The purpose of the meeting was to review the status of the NASA ACTS program.
Dr. Byerly started the meeting by asking a number of questions about the rational for
NASA’s recommitment to develop a second generation satellite communications technology
base for industry. The following points were established by the ensuing discussions:
• The current global shift form [sic] an industrial to an information-based economy
is creating a rapidly increasing demand for capacity that cannot be met by the
satellite communication technology base developed by NASA and industry during
the period of 1962 to 1973.
• The satellite communications industry is not monolithic; individual sectors like
the hardware manufacturers, the common carriers, the antenna manufacturers,
the entrepreneurs who buy transponders one-at-a-time and resell them and
other[s] have had little interest in maintaining an advanced technology base.
• The U.S. competitive edge in the world market has been substantially eroded by
the transfer of technology to foreign manufacturers; in the U.S., only two out of
five former leaders in the world market remain competitive.
• To provide the capacity to meet the forecasted demand, NASA and industry over
the past five years focused research on the precursor technologies to an experimental
system like ACTS; the technologies include frequency reuse through spot
beams, on-board switching and regeneration, data compression, modulation and
demodulation and beam hopping; there is now a good understanding of the technical
risks related to most of the technologies.
• The ACTS program provides for the testing of many of these technologies in an
experimental network that could be applied to the next generation of geostationary
communications satellites. It’s [sic] objective is to restore the preeminence
of the U.S. industry in satellite communications.
Dr. Byerly and Mr. Lovell discussed the NASA effort that supports the ACTS program.
It consists of two activities. One involves fundamental research aimed at developing the
devices and processes that support an advanced components development activity and
some highly sophisticated components which are beyond the technical level of ACTS. The
second is directed toward developing components that will reduce some of the technical
risk related to the ACTS experimental flight systems.
Dr. Byerly inquired into the status of the ACTS program. Mr. Lovell indicated that
NASA was still involved in the source selection process. One proposal was submitted in
response to the RFP [request for proposals] which was issued in March 1983. The proposed
industry team is composed of RCA, TRW, COMSAT, Hughes and Motorola. RCA
would act as the prime contractor responsible for the satellite bus and the integration of
the ACTS payload. The total estimated cost of the ACTS program is $354.0 million.
Industry will contribute to the cost of the program.
Some discussion about the incentives for industry to participate in the ACTS program
followed. The principal motivators are: a $10-$15 billion per year commercial communications
market in the 1990’s, an opportunity to be the beneficiary of a good technology
transfer mechanism and good protection of proprietary data amid an activity including a
number of competitors.