Patent ID: 8451166

Claim:
A system for locating a geostationary satellite of a satellite telecommunication system, comprising: at least one station emitting telecommunications signals, a transponder on board said satellite, having a bandwidth B, the at least one station receiving the telecommunications signals, a central station emitting a specific signal distinct from the telecommunications signals, the specific signal comprising a stream of binary data, having periodic events, with spread spectrum, the bandwidth of which is included in B, and transmitted via the transponder of the telecommunications satellite, wherein at least three measurement stations receive the specific signal emitted by the central station, including means for measuring the time of arrival of the specific signal, and wherein the central and measurement stations, of known positions, include synchronization means with a common time base, and further comprising means for uploading the measurements from the measurement stations to a computation centre, and further comprising a computation centre for computing the position of the satellite which comprises means for determining the position of the geostationary satellite on the basis of the distances between the central station and each measurement station via the satellite, computed from measurements of the times of arrival made by the measurement stations.