EUROPEAN RESEARCH ON KA-BAND SLANT PATH PROPAGATION

Europe saw two major initiatives in the mid-1980's to verify the viabi lity of 20-50 GHz frequency bands for high capacity radio transmission . The first was the experimental telecommunication satellite OLYMPUS c ommissioned by the European Space Agency; the second was the ITALSAT p rogram planned by the Italian Space Agency. Both spacecraft were equip ped with highly stable propagation beacon payloads for accurate measur ement of propagation conditions. Two international groups of experimen ters (OPEX for OLYMPUS and CEPIT for ITALSAT), who had agreed on a set of common procedures for the earth stations' design, experiment manag ement, and comparison of results, carried out the propagation measurem ents in a collaborative manner. This paper gives a summary of these ac tivities and their results.