Cover: PACSAT
Read Online

PACSAT

A Passive Communication Satellite for Survivable Command and Control

by Edward Bedrosian

Download

Download eBook for Free

FormatFile SizeNotes
PDF file 1 MB

Use Adobe Acrobat Reader version 10 or higher for the best experience.

Purchase

Purchase Print Copy

 FormatList Price Price
Add to Cart Paperback34 pages $20.00 $16.00 20% Web Discount

Examines passive communication satellites as alternatives to active communication satellites in the hostile environment that may exist in the postattack period of a nuclear war. Inexpensive, survivable, and jam resistant, they offer an attractive low-data-rate capability. PACSAT is a proliferable candidate for this role. It consists of a long (about 1 km), gravity-gradient-stabilized array of small beads (about 1 cm in diameter) that reflects a narrow, conical, frequency-steerable beam back to the earth. The properties of PACSAT are presented and its performance in a representative system for the command and control of MX is evaluated.

This report is part of the RAND Corporation Note series. The note was a product of the RAND Corporation from 1979 to 1993 that reported other outputs of sponsored research for general distribution.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.