This thesis presents two applications of spread spectrum technology to very small aperture terminal (VSAT) satellite communication networks. It describes two spread spectrum multiple access systems which use a form of noncoherent M-ary FSK (MFSK) as the primary modulation and analyzes their throughput. The analysis considers such factors as satellite power constraints and adjacent satellite interference. It considers the effect of onâ board processing on the multiple access efficiency and investigates the feasibility of overlaying low data rate spread spectrum signals on existing satellite traffic as a form of frequency reuse.