New and revolutionary developments continue to take place in the field of satellite and space communications. The goal of the Satellite and Space Communications Technical Committee (SSC TC) is to be actively on top of these new developments, ensure that they are made visible to the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) community, and provide a forum to facilitate technical interchange among those working in the field. Toward this objective, we are in the process of formulating plans to attract new members particularly from companies and organizations at the forefront of these new developments. Currently the SSC TC has 120 members from academia and industry. The SSC TC meeting is held semi-annually at the ICC and GLOBECOM conferences. The SSC officers are Iwao Sasase for Chair, Ron P. Smith for Vice Chair, and Abbas Jamalipour for Secretary.

In the recent Globecom conference held in San Antonio, Texas, SSC sponsored and organized a symposium on "Symposium on Satellite Communications for Global IP and ATM Networking." It consisted of three full sessions and a panel discussion. The panel was titled "Market trends and technology development for DVB-RCS together with workshop on global standards and regulatory efforts" and was organized by Jason Neale, from EMS Technologies Canada Limited. The panel comprised of a series of talks from leading satellite industry participants from Europe and North America, and attracted a  great deal of attention in the conference. More information about this panel is available at SSC web site: http://www.comsoc.org/socstr/techcom/ssc/.

SSC has recently started an award approved by the IEEE Communications Society in order to promote research and development activities in the area of satellite communications within the industry and academia research community. The award is called "Distinguished Contributions to Satellite Communications Award" and is planned to be given to an individual or a group of researchers on a yearly basis at each Globecom. The award nomination/ application is due to Oct. 1st each year. More description of this award and application procedures can be found at the SSC web site: http://www.comsoc.org/socstr/techcom/ssc/.
We encourage all IEEE ComSoc members to apply or nominate their colleagues for this award.

Anyone attending one of the two annual TC meetings will automatically become a SSC member. You can  become an Associate Member of SSC by sending your information and application to the SSC Secretary. Contact information, procedures, and benefits of being a member can be found at the SSC web site:
 http://www.comsoc.org/socstr/techcom/ssc/

SSC publishes a Newsletter twice a year and distributes it to all members  by email, over the SSC web site, and also as hard copies during ICC and Globecom conferences. Current and previous issues of the SSC Newsletter are available on the SSC web site. Technical articles and reports are welcome for publication in the Newsletter.

Please contact the SSC Secretary, Abbas Jamalipour <a.jamalipour@ieee.org> for more information on any of the topics in this report.

-------------------------