The objective of this activity is to develop an optical ground station network testbed to which parties can connect their ground station and prototype network-related aspects for optical and quantum communications in an operational network environment. Targeted Improvements:Reduction of manual link planning and analysis effort. Testing and simulation capabilities for optical end-to-end data delivery. Description:The objective of this activity…

The objective of the activity is to develop and test a reprogrammable testbed in space to permit the experimentation of Beyond 5G (B5G) satellite features and capabilities and enable technology verification and demonstration; rapid validation of end-to-end solutions and services, following the principles of continuous development/continuous integration. B5G satellitefeatures will be implemented in the testbed as part of the activity to demonst…

The objective of this activity is to design and develop a simulation testbed for secure delivery of assistance data with5G satellite networks to enhance positioning.Targeted Improvements:Foster the use of 5G satellite networks to enhance positioning with ubiquitous, reliable, and secure delivery of assistance data. Enable secure time and frequency synchronisation in existing or future telecommunication infrastructure.Description:Various positi…

The objective of the activity is to develop a breadboard of a flexible pivot a with large range of rotation angle (goal90 degrees),which features a hollow inner shaft to route an optical beam for optical communications or cables/waveguide in other applications.Targeted Improvements:One order of magnitude improvement in operating lifetime of coarse pointing mechanisms in optical communication terminals compared to ball bearing mechanisms, and a…

Objective:The objective of the activity is to develop and qualify a faint pulse laser source for space-based quantum key distribution systems.Targeted Improvements:Increase the technical readiness level of faint pulse laser sources suitable for quantum key distribution applications from 5 to 7. Description:Quantum key distribution systems using protocols based on faint laser pulses require a photon source emitting less than one photon per puls…

The objective of the activity is to develop and test a configurable execution environment for an intelligent platform data handlingsystemTargeted Improvements:- 30% improvement of the performance of autonomous applications.- 50% reduction of the applicationsoftware integration and validation efforts.Description: The increase of processing power onboard spacecrafts will allow the implementation of intelligent functionalities such as early fail…

Objective: The objective is to design, implement and test the IP Cores of the receiver for the coding and synchronisation layer of the two CCSDS telemetry waveforms for optical communications. Targeted Improvements: New market opportunities for optical terminal and equipment manufacturers, addressing both photon-starved links up to 8Gbps and high data rate links up to 10Gbps. This activity will target to reduce by 50% the development costs in…

Objective:The objective of the activity is to develop a space-based point to multipoint optical terminal.Targeted Improvements:The MOHU would reduce the number of required Optical Head Units by a factor greater than 2. The MOHU should target a mass and sizeless than x1.5 the mass and size of the combined individual Optical Head Units.Description:Today the implementation of simultaneous optical space to ground links (Optical Feeder Links) requi…

The objective of this activity is to design, manufacture and test a 100W W-band waveguide high power isolator engineering model forfeeder link applications.Targeted Improvements: Enabling technology development for W-band feeder links not existing today in ESAMember States.Description: The usage of the spectrum available in W-band for satellite communications offers the opportunity to reduce the number of gateways in the ground segment. For su…

The objectives of this activity are to design, develop and test techniques enabling integration of existing and new VPN solutions suitable for space networks (LEO constellation, MEO constellation or GEO) for the purpose of comparison, performance evaluation and optimisation, while maintaining compatibility with terrestrial networks.

Objective: Power efficient 75W class solid state power amplifier module for active antenna applicationsTargeted Improvements: - Reduced mass and volume by more than 50% compared to travel wave tube amplifiers.- Increased power efficiency by 20% in comparison to current state of art, reaching at least 40% PAE at the nominal operation point in Ku-band or 35% in Ka-bandDescription: Satellite telecommunication systems have experienced an evolution…

The objective of this activity is to design, develop and perform an in-orbit experiment of high-performance data transport, switching and processing technologies consisting of several key building blocks like processors, mass memory, switches and optical interconnects, allowing a data throughput of up to 10 Terabit per second to enable future high performance telecommunication applications. Targeted Improvements: Improvement by a factor of two…

The objective of this activity is to design, manufacture and test an engineering model of a beam forming network chip to support direct radiating array antennas in W-band for future receive chain feeder links in ultra-high throughput satellite telecommunication payloads.Targeted Improvements: Enabling technology for reconfigurable antennas in W-band for ultra-high-throughput satellite feederlinks (at least 1 Tbit/s throughput) not existing tod…

The objective is to develop, embark and carry out an in-orbit experiment to investigate the performance of specific air interfaces over very low frequencies (in the 24 to 72 MHz range) for very low data rate (Internet of Things (IoT), emergency paging etc) from satellite to ground and vice versa. This experiment will include the channel characterisation (including space weather effects) and communication performance assessment in outdoor and i…

The objective of this activity is to identify+ develop and test Software Defined Networking (SDN) based solutions for 5G Core Network (CN)+ capable of addressing efficiently and effectively Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) attacks against 5G Non-Terrestrial Networks. This activity will develop a testbed of SDN implementation for 5G CN to test protection mechanisms against various attack scenarios for relevant 5G NTN use cases+ and study t…

This Call for Proposals covers the industry initiated activities for the four Programmes lines identified below:ARTES Core Competitiveness Generic ProgrammeLine- Component B: Competitiveness GrowthARTES Strategic Programme Line Space for 5G/6G and Sustainable Connectivity ARTES Strategic Programme Line Space Systems for Safety and Security (4S)ARTES Strategic Programme Line Optical and Quantum Communication - ScyLight. The participating state…

This Call for Proposals covers the industry initiated activities for the Civil Security for Space programme.

The Pioneer programme, implemented under the ARTES 4.0 Generic Programme Line "Partnership Projects", aims to supports the emergence of Space Mission Providers (SMPs), i.e. commercial entities interested in becoming one-stop-shop service providers for public and private customers. The Open Call for proposals is aimed to offer the opportunity for new companies from across all ESA member states to participate in the programme. It will…

The objective of this activity is to develop a testbed that allows the demonstration of vehicle-to-everything (V2X) 5G services viasatellite. Using existing satellite assets and on-ground antenna for mobile applications (not necessarily aesthetically attractive), the test bed shall address both forward and return link traffic, to support the definition of future V2X applications and associated technical enhancements. The set of services to be…

The objective of this activity is to develop and evaluate efficient digital beamforming algorithms and techniques that are compatible with non-uniform antenna arrays or non-uniform beam lattices. The developed techniques will be implemented and evaluated on a representative processor test bed. Targeted Improvements: 30 to 70% power reduction on the implementation of digital beamforming algorithms with non-uniform input/outputs with respect to…

Objective: To develop a simulator of optical propagation based on a high-resolution numerical atmospheric simulator, to be used forthe long-term characterisation and the forecast of the signal scintillation and other propagation effects in the area around a ground terminal for Earth-Space optical communication system. Targeted Improvements: Breakthrough to achieve regional optical channel performance assessment; achieve high resolution channel…

The objective of the activity is to design, manufacture and test in orbit an inflatable drag device for de-orbiting small satellites from Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Performance data will be gathered (deployment imagery and positional telemetry) in a fully representative space environment (including drag effects) that would not be possible to simulate or test on ground. Targeted Improvements:Reduce de-orbit time by a factor of 5 (for altitudes of 4…

The objective of this activity is to design, develop and test a breadboard of a highly integrated Q-V band beam forming network forflexible on-board feeder link active antennas. Targeted Improvements: Enabling a European source for Q-V band beamforming for feeder links. Description: Feeder links in next generation Very High Throughput Satellites (VHTS) rely on a full RF chain in Q-V band. Today, mechanically steerable multi-feed antenna archit…

The objective of the activity is to develop and test a power-efficient, high-throughput and fault-tolerant network switching architecture for regenerative processors using COTS System-on-Chip (SoC) components as software-defined network switches. This will include radiation testing and development of fault mitigation methods (at system and software level). Targeted Improvements: Enabling reliable software-defined packet switching using COTS co…

The objective of the activity is to design, manufacture and test a prototype of an on-board timing equipment for secure communications. Targeted Improvements: Enabling secure communications thanks to high accuracy and resilient timing synchronisation (sub micro seconds). Description:Governmental communications make use of secured waveforms, which implement modern techniques like frequency hopping or direct sequence spread spectrum, and require…