NTN link budget: satellite EIRP, G/T, atmospheric losses, rain fade

Building an NTN Link Budget

The link budget is the fundamental engineering tool for satellite communication system design. It accounts for every gain and loss in the signal path from transmitter to receiver, determining whether a reliable communication link can be established. For NTN, the link budget must capture satellite transmit power and antenna gain expressed as EIRP, free-space path loss that increases with the square of distance and frequency, atmospheric absorption and scintillation effects, and the receiver sensitivity expressed as the ratio of antenna gain to system noise temperature. Unlike terrestrial…