Reliable characterization of the propagation environment and channel modelling of mobile satellite communication systems is necessary in order to provide better quality of service and efficient design of these systems. In this paper, the channel impairments affecting the performance and an overview of the satellite channel models are presented. The statistical distributions of the received signal that can be used to characterize the dynamic nature of these propagation channels are also presented. The main modelling parameters are investigated and simulation results show that the bit error rate performance (BER) is predominantly affected by the shadowing factor.