Radio interfaces of satellite component of the IMT-Advanced system were recently developed by International Telecommunication Union -Radiocommunication (ITU-R), and they were specified in the Recommendation ITU-R M.2047. The set of techniques specified in the Recommendation can be used to provide high quality mobile satellite services with efficient spectrum utilization, and the candidate services will include multimedia broadband services to handheld or portable terminals and public protection and disaster relief services. This paper presents a brief background on the standardization procedure and describes the technical characteristics of the satellite radio interfaces specified in the ITU-R recommendation. (1)