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International Mobile Satellite Organization INMARSAT, established in 1976, has proven its viability and effectiveness by ensuring continuous interaction of states and national organizations in achieving common objectives of the creation and operation of its space segment for the purpose of providing commercial radio communication services for mobile sea, ground and air units, as well as non-commercial radio communication services, including services within the Global Maritime Distress Safety System (GMDSS). In this connection, it is of both academic and practical interest to study the details of INMARSAT’s international law nature. This international organisation is unique because, while having international legal personality, it is directly engaged in providing its space segment. This has affected the structure and content of INMARSAT’ foundation documents (Convention and Operational Agreement), the nature of its membership and content of its bodies’ functions, the rights and obligations of a member state and the national communications organisation nominated by it as the INMARSAT participant. An analysis of INMARSAT’s international law nature will allow to assess the extent to which its organizational and legal structure meets the requirements.

Future autonomous transportation is one of the most demanding application areas in terms of connectivity, as it has to simultaneously meet stringent criteria that do not typically go hand in hand, such as high throughput, low latency, high coverage/availability, high positioning and sensing accuracies, high security and robustness to interferences, etc. In order to meet the future demands of challenging applications, such as applications relying on autonomous vehicles, terrestrial networks are no longer sufficient and are to be augmented in the future with satellite-based networks. Among the emerging satellite networks, Low Earth Orbit (LEO) networks are able to provide advantages over traditional Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) and Geo-Stationary Earth Orbit (GEO) networks in terms of signal latency, cost, and performance. Nevertheless, several challenges exist in LEO system design, which have not been fully addressed in the existing literature. In particular, the problem of LEO-system optimization of design parameters is a multi-dimensional problem with many aspects to be considered. This paper offers a comprehensive survey of the LEO-system design parameters, of the challenges in LEO system design process, and of the optimization methods for satellite communication, positioning, and sensing applications, as well as a summarizing discussion on the design considerations for LEO-based networks to support future autonomous transportation.

LAPAN-IPB micro satellite (LISAT) is the first EBA (Experimental Based Application) planned to be launched in 2013. The technical schedule implementation includes Phase-1 (2010), Phase-2 (2011), Phase-3 (2012), and Launching/Phase-4 (2013). This research was targeted at the Phase-1 (MAD: Mission Analysis and Design), with priority on space segment and user segment. Goal of this research were three critical elements: (1) initial document of MRD (Mission Requirements Definition) as a reference for next LISAT phase (policy), (2) electronic Basic Ricefield Map (e-BARIM) at the test site in Subang regency, West Java (user segment), and (3) test flight of 3-channel optical sensor (LISAT-EM3) at the test site (space segment). The study was scheduled for gadu season rice crop of 2010, and most of the work completed, except for flight test that were experiencing delay for several times. Flight was re-scheduled from early July to September, but eventually conducted in early November. This was due to the complexity of coordination of many agencies involved: LAPAN / Pustekelegan (administration), TNI headquarters (security clearance), Theta System, Germany (line-CCD), IPB (area-CCD) and Deraya Air (charter aircraft)