Satellite Ground Station Contact Probability

Compute the probability of achieving at least one successful satellite downlink each day, adjusting a baseline per-pass success rate for weather and maintenance downtime.

Total ground-station visibility windows scheduled each day.
Probability a single pass succeeds absent weather or maintenance derates.
Defaults to 0%. Fraction of passes degraded by clouds, rain, or fading.
Defaults to 0%. Planned or unplanned ground-station downtime share.

High-level planning tool. Validate mission availability with full link budgets and scheduling constraints.

Examples

  • 12 passes/day, 82% base success, 12% weather downtime, 5% maintenance ⇒ 98.89% chance of daily contact
  • 6 passes/day, 70% base success, no derates ⇒ 91.72% chance of daily contact

FAQ

Does this handle multi-ground-station diversity?

Yes. Sum passes across all stations, provided the per-pass success rate reflects diversity gains such as split polarization or multi-GNSS tracking.

How should I estimate per-pass success?

Use historical contact data or link-budget simulations that include modulation, coding, rain fade margins, and antenna pointing error.

What if probability seems too high?

Increase downtime percentages or lower the baseline success rate to reflect real-world dropouts like TLE errors or handover failures.

Can I model weekly campaigns?

Multiply passes per day by campaign days to get an aggregate probability over the interval; the same formula applies.

Additional Information

  • Availability multiplies weather and maintenance factors to derate the base per-pass probability.
  • The calculator reports probability of at least one success across the day's passes.
  • Outputs are capped at 100% and rounded to two decimal places.
  • Passes can be fractional if averaged over multiple days of scheduling.

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