For the study of distributed dual-polarized MIMO land mobile satellite (MIMO-LMS) system, a statistical model for the channels is proposed after the analysis of the channel characteristics. The second order statistics are calculated and channel capacity of different type of MIMO-LMS system is estimated. Considering the Doppler spread in the small scale fading and selecting the proper form of MIMO model, the channel model can keep the statistic characteristics as well as the correlation of the sub-channels unchanged. The simulation result shows that the channel capacity can be increased by applying MIMO to LMS communication and enhances with the increasing number of the antennas.