Dr. Michael Horstein
Dr. Horstein has been a significant contributor to the development of new concepts in satellite communications. He has performed numerous studies and written pioneering papers in this field. He has demonstrated a complete grasp of both the financial and business implications of these new businesses.
TRW, 1981-1997
- Odyssey Program. Received several US and European patents for medium Earth orbit (MEO) mobile satellite communications. As the Chief System Engineer for the project he directed the systems design and resolved technical issues for the program. As regulatory manager he contributed to FCC regulatory activities. He was a US delegate for international regulatory policy at the 1997 CPM and WRC'97.
- Inmarsat Project 21 design studies for MEO constellations (1993). There were two studies that played a major role in Inmarsat selecting MEO for the Inmarsat-P service. This approach became the basis for ICO Global Communications Ltd. ICO Global eventually paid TRW $150 million in stock for the Odyssey patents.
- NASA Deep Space Relay Satellite System (1990). This three-year study examined the use of Earth orbiting relay satellites to communicate with deep space scientific missions. It focused on the use of optical communications for the deep space links.
- NASA Direct Satellite Broadcast for Voice of America (1984). The study examined the feasibility of substituting satellites for terrestrial HF radio communications. This was one of the earliest studies of the use of satellites for direct radio broadcasting. The challenge of this system was to provide services at 26 MHz. In this case non-geostationary orbits were selected because of the low frequency and the large size of the antennas. The system had 15 satellites in an eight-hour orbit and was designed to provide worldwide Voice of America programming. This experience led directly to the Odyssey MEO.
- NASA Land Mobile Satellite Systems (1982). This was one of the earliest studies of satellite for land mobile communications at UHF (adjacent to the cellular bands). The dominant feature was a large aperture antenna.
Xerox Telecommunication Network Services, 1979-1980
Contributed to the design of the innovative XTEN satellite network. This network was intended to provide communications for inter-city document transfer.
Hughes Aircraft Co., 1960-1979
Manager of Communication Analysis Department.
Worked on orbit determination for the JPL Surveyor moonlander.
Education
BS and MS in Electrical Engineering, MIT, 1956
ScD in Electrical Engineering, MIT, 1960
MBA. UCLA, 1979