Glossary
Definitions
3 definitions
Rain Fade
The attenuation of satellite radio signals caused by absorption and scattering by rain droplets in the atmosphere — most severe at Ka-band (18–30 GHz) where a tropical downpour can cause 20+ dB of additional loss, managed through link margin, adaptive coding/modulation, and gateway site diversity.
Rideshare
A launch model where multiple satellite operators share a single rocket, each paying only for their allocated mass fraction, enabling smallsat operators to reach orbit for hundreds of thousands rather than millions of dollars per launch.
Rocket Reusability
The ability to recover and reflight rocket components — primarily first stages — after launch, reducing per-flight costs by amortising the manufacturing cost of the rocket hardware across multiple missions.