Patent ID: 8238816

Claim:
A satellite comprising an arrangement of spot-beam antennas for covering a predetermined geographic area of interest within which geographic area there are multiple separate and distinguishable sub-areas, wherein the antennas produce at least two identical and orthogonal patterns of spot-beams on opposite polarizations, and the second pattern (Pattern 2 ) is offset with respect to the first pattern (Pattern 1 ) such that the amount of straddling between sub-areas covered by adjacent spot-beams arising from the Pattern 1 and Pattern 2 is substantially avoided, and wherein the antennas are arranged to direct spot-beams so that no parts within the predetermined geographic area of interest are not covered, and wherein each spot-beam is assigned a frequency band consistent with the amount of frequency re-use desired within a sub-area to be covered by the spot-beam and subject to the amount of acceptable self interference, and wherein each spot-beam is assigned a spectrum segment and the spectrum segment may be any fraction of the total available bandwidth of the arrangement of spot-beams.