1. NASDA WINDS Project
NASDA, Japanese Space Agency, promotes "i-Space Utilization Experiment" as a part of the R&D work on space infrastructure towards life with wideband Internet. In this project, several R&D and verification tests will be performed in many areas, such as Internet, Education, Medical Science, Disaster Monitoring and Mitigation, ITS (Intelligent Transportation System) and so on, using three new satellites, i.e. Wideband Inter-Networking engineering test and Demonstration Satellite (WINDS), Engineering Test Satellite VIII (ETS-VIII) and Quasi-Zenith Satellite System, wherein the development is in progress now.

The major objective of the WINDS project is to develop and verify the main technologies for future ultra high-speed satellite communication. The WINDS satellite communications system aims for a maximum speed of 155Mbps (receiving)/ 6Mbps (transmitting) for homes using 45cm aperture small antennas, and an ultra fast 1.2Gbps for official use. The function will be operated all over the Asia Pacific region including Japan. The technology for the Ka-band multi-beam antenna with a high-powered multi-port amplifier can achieve fixed ultra fast communications all over Japan and in major Asian cities, such as Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. At the same time, flexible power distribution to each communication area can cope with the regional communication demand and the rain attenuation. In addition, the Ka-band active phased array antenna technology makes it possible to control the antennas communication direction rapidly and electronically, thus communication can be carried out quickly to specific areas with demand.

Currently, NASDA and Communication Research Laboratory (CRL) are engaged in the study to achieve the planned launch date of WINDS on the year 2005. NASDA has so far conducted nine Pilot Experiments as part of the i-Space Utilization Experiment Project since the year 2001 for the various areas of applications, such as education and medical fields. In this year, NASDA is conducting eight new experiments, along with the subjects carried over from year 2001. The plan described here is one of the new selected subjects last year 2002. The first phase of this experiment was planned from 1st Nov 2002 to 31st Oct. 2003 and it might be extended up to three years if approved by "the Committee to select i-Space Pilot Experiment Subjects".

2. i-Space Pilot Experiment "Asia e-learning Pilot Experiment by Multi-point Distant Learning Network System"

2.1 Purpose of this experiment
In the future e-learning based on WINDS, it is considered that new technologies will be implemented both in the satellite network and the style of e-learning as follows;

• Network: The WINDS network will include on-board ATM switch. Hence, a Mesh-type network topology can be configured flexibly with this switch. Furthermore broadband communications will be possible on smaller-size antennas than existing VSAT systems.
• Style of e-learning: In future, flexible configuration of e-learning class including both-way, multi-point and broadband discussion is expected. It would be different from the traditional one way (or broadcast only) style of e-learning. In such a new style of e-learning, several kinds of traffic will be requested with different quality requirements, as different media and from different locations simultaneously. The management of e-learning will be integrated by Instructional Design (ID) technology, including web-based portal site.

This Pilot Experiment focuses on ATM switching function, which will be implemented on WINDS. The main target of this experiment is that multi-point / multi-media distance learning system could be put into practice soon after the launching of WINDS. In order to achieve this target, Mesh-type topology and demand-assign satellite network using existing satellites and its e-learning application will be used so that we could consider technical requirements and its impact on the other application, and contribute to the development of the next generation's e-learning application. The purpose of pilot experiment is to study the ID technologies on WINDS environment and to list-up the requirements to satellite networks from multi-point e-learning based on ID technologies.

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