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Sun Outage Information

A sun outage is an interruption in Geostationary Orbit Satellite signals caused by solar radiation interference that occurs when the sun is directly behind the satellite which the earth station is pointed to. The sun’s thermal noise increases the total system noise power of the earth station, causing a degradation in the link performance of the downlink signal.

Sun outage is a predictable phenomenon. The actual start time, duration, and degree of impact may vary depending on the conditions such as the location of the receiving earth station, size of the antenna, and characteristics of the receive signal.

Sun Outage Occurrences

Sun outage occurs twice a year during the time of the equinoxes. In the northern hemisphere, sun outage occurs before the March equinox (February- March) and after the September equinox (September-October). For the southern hemisphere, the outage occurs after the March equinox and before the September equinox.

Sun Outage Duration

For Geostationary Orbit Satellites, the typical duration of a sun outage is a few minutes per day for a few days.

Relatively, the duration tends to be longer for small antennas compared to the larger ones.

Sun Outage Calculator

Please access the Sun Outage Calculator tool from the link here to calculate the predicted outages based on your satellite, antenna size, and location.