Trends in Satellite Tele-education

by Dr. Joseph N. Pelton, Dean, International Space University,

Srasbourg, France
The Start of Satellite Tele-education
The launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, occurred in October
1957. This was quickly followed by the launch of a series of
telecommunications satellites such as Score, Courier IB, Echo, Relay,
Telstar, and Syncom. These and other experimental satellites
demonstrated that voice, data and television could be sent reliably
between ground antenna systems. These experiments led to the
deployment of three operational systems in 1965 namely the Russian
Molniya domestic satellite system, the U.S. Initial Defense Satellite
Communications System, and the INTELSAT global satellite system's
Early Bird. From the very start of satellite communications services
television transmissions were featured. These included exchanges
between heads of state, the Lemans automobile race, and important
social services such as surgeons in Geneva, Switzerland observing
open heart surgery in Houston, Texas by Dr. Debekey.
In the ensuing years through the late 1960s and the 1970s efforts to
devise satellite technology that could bring cost effective satellite tele-
education services to rural and remote areas at cost-effective rates
continued. These efforts included the Applications Technology Satellite
series 1 through 6 that showed many different new satellite
applications including satellite tele-education. The ATS-6 with a very
large unfurlable antenna demonstrated rural satellite video education
services in the Appalachia region of the U.S. as well as in Brazil and
India. The Communications Technology Satellite (with the Hermes
satellite designed and built in Canada and with NASA providing the
launch) also showed how very high powered satellites could broadcast
educational video to rural areas using only very small aperture
terminals.
In the 1980s satellite based tele-education began to evolve on a global
scale. The Indian INSAT system, building on the positive SITE
experiments conducted with the ATS-6 was deployed starting with the
INSAT 1B in 1983. Now with the INSAT 2 series, built the Indian Space
Organization, deployed there are four satellites providing television
based education to tens of thousands of villages. In Indonesia the
Palapa satellite system also began offering television education in the
1980s as well. International programming as well as local programming
developed by Television Radio Indonesia (TVRI) provided service to
sites on Indonesia most heavily populated islands.
In areas such as the Caribbean and the South Pacific operating
networks based on satellite operations have been in operation for over
20 years through such networks as UDIWITE (University of the West
Indies) Peacesat (University of the South Pacific).
Project SHARE
One of the key stimulants to the spread of satellite communications
came from the INTELSAT sponsored Satellites for Health and Rural
Education (SHARE) project that took place from 1985 to 1987. Free
satellite capacity was made available to test rural and remote
educational and tele-health projects all over the world. Most
dramatically, China, under the auspices of INTELSAT's Project Share
began its national education television program in this manner. It
began with only a few dozen stations and a few thousand students.
Today this network has over 90,000 antennas in operation in all parts
of China and reaches over 3 million students.
In East Africa and in the Caribbean tele-medicine tests were carried out
using only a single satellite voice circuit to connect the Memorial
Hospital of Newfoundland to remote hospital and clinics. The same
circuit was used for a seven hour shift to link Canada with Kenya and
Uganda and then for another seven hour shift to link Canada with
Caribbean nations.
Current and Future Trends
In Canada and the United States over 100 different satellite tele-
education systems are now in operation. These include state and
province owned and operated networks, commercial networks that
range from primary schooling to graduate level programming. Some
projects such as the Mind-Extension University of the Jones Intercable
reaches into over 20 million homes via cable television. Others such as
the National Technological University (NTU) combines college course
produced by over 40 different universities and also provides short
courses and corporate training. European use of satellite tele-
education has been less extensive than in North America simply
because extensive terrestrial telecommunications networks are widely
available and cover population centers and educational institutions
quite well.
Project LEARN
One of the latest initiatives to seek to stimulate new directions and
experiments in satellite tele-education is called Project LEARN. This
stands for Local Education and Resource Network and its objective is to
stimulate a wide range of tele-education projects in diverse subjects, in
a number of countries and with alternative technical and operations
approaches. It is anticipated that after the various trials, tests and
demonstrations, and projects are completed that an assessment team
will evaluate the successes, shortcoming, and key lessons learned and
prepare a international report of these findings. To date projects in
India, China, Russia, Korea, and the U.S. have been initially identified
for detailed planning. It is intended that the final report and evaluation
will be published and circulated by the International
Telecommunication Union as well as presented in electronic form as an
international web site. Specific objectives are to test and
evaluate:

1. broad band versus narrow band tele-education systems

2. effectiveness of tele-education at various age levels
3. ability to combine rural communications systems with tele-education systems
4. effectiveness of combined tele-education and tele-medicine projects
5. effectiveness of satellite, terrestrial and hybrid systems in meeting tele-education
objectives.
6. identify typical gaps or problems in tele-education projects such as in the areas of
training of educators and technicians, program development, terminal equipment,
high cost of establishing or maintaining ground systems, technical standards, etc.
7. impact of tele-education systems on quality of life and general improvements to
society (these areas are admittedly extremely difficult to measure).

These projects are planned for 1998 and 1999 and the final report for
Project LEARN is anticipated in the year 2000.
There are today a growing number of test, demonstrations, and even
commercial projects in tele-education. It is hoped that Project LEARN
and perhaps other parallel global test and evaluation programs can
share more broadly and effectively the results of these tele-education
tests.
Conclusions
Today there are some 50 satellite carriers who have deployed some
200 GHz of satellite capacity in orbit, representing over 200 satellites.
The next decade may well see the number of satellite carriers growing
to 100 to 150 carriers and the total amount of satellite capacity (as
now proposed) could grow to 2000 GHz. This explosion of satellite
capacity in low, medium and geosynchronous satellite orbit should
make a tremendous amount of new space segment capacity that could
be used for tele-education and tele-medicine purposes. Further this
sudden expansion of capacity should also reduce the capital and
operating costs for tele-education systems. Systematic planning
efforts, like Project LEARN are needed now to exploit fully the new
capacity that will be increasingly available in the next few years.