The objective of the activity is to design, manufacture and test an electric thruster using Argon propellant, compatible with the long lifetime and high total impulse requirements of telecommunication satellites in GEO and for constellations.Targeted Improvements:- Novel capability to operate with Argon propellant not existing today.- Improved lifetime and Total Impulse per kW(N.s/kW) by a factor of 2.- Decreased complexity of the thruster arc…

The objective of the activity is to design a compact L-band RF front-end for telecom applications which is based on a GaN Low NoiseAmplifier (LNA). A breadboard of a GaN microwave monolithic integrated circuit will be developed and tested. The RF front-end including the filtering function shall be modelled.Targeted Improvements: up to 30% mass and volume saving of the RF front-end (LNA and filtering) and 20 dB improvement of the LNA dynamic ra…

The objective is to develop an onboard data handling architecture capable of autonomously acquiring, processing and interpreting housekeeping and telemetry data and taking the required actions without ground intervention. The activity will develop a data handlingsub-system demonstrator to validate the intelligent functionalities, including prognostic and health management (PHM) capabilitiesTargeted Improvements: Enabling technology development…

The objective of this activity is to design, manufacture and test a breadboard of a high-power amplifier in Ku-band or above with 10 W/mm class of power density in continuous wave operation. The selected manufacturing process will allow a smaller chip size with reduced junction temperature, reduced thermal memory effects and improved efficiency.Targeted Improvements:- 3-5 times improvementin power density.- Junction temperature reduction of te…

Development of tools and hardware and the execution of a measurement campaign for background light and atmosphere conditions for Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) at urban location (major cities and metropolitan areas) under ARTES 4.0 Space Systems for Safety and Security (4S) Strategic Programme Line. These measurement results are an important check point to validate the design of the SAGA system. The background light and atmosphere metrology ac…

The objective of this activity is to design, develop and validate a system architecture and suitable waveform for an Aeronautical Mobile-Satellite (Route) Services (AMS(R)S) constellation in C-band for safety and security services.

The objective of the activity is to identify and benchmark power efficient radio frequency algorithms on complex System on Chip (SoC) devices. Power efficient algorithms for at least two applications case (e.g. beamforming, decoding/encoding, neural networks...) will be designed, developed and tested and compared to programmable logic only implementation.Targeted Improvements: 50% reductionpower consumption for radio frequency algorithms with…

Objective: The objective of the activity is to develop and test NGSO networking techniques for 5G V2X services. The developments will be implemented and verified in a simulator modelling realistic system scenarios of 5G LEO satellites. Targeted Improvements: Enabling the provision of 5G V2X services by satellite. Description:Due to their low altitudes, LEO satellite systems may offer low-latency 5G connectivity that, paired with on-board edge…

The objective of the activity is to develop and test a digital-twin for on-orbit assembly and manufacturing of antennas up to 30-50metres diameter. An end-to-end manufacturing process will be selected and guidance, navigation and control techniques for assembly and manufacturing on-orbit will be developed. A simple large reflector antenna will be designed, and assembly and manufacturing will be evaluated with the developed digital twin.Targete…

Objective: The objective of the activity is to first design a Laser Communication Terminal (LCT) concept suitable for communicationover lunar distances. In a second step, the activity will develop an engineering model of a CCSDS compatible transceiver with critical functions including coding, synchronisation, and modulation. Targeted Improvements: Enabling a European or Canadian lunar communication terminal operating with a data rate one order…

Objective: The objective of the activity is to develop, manufacture and test a breadboard of a L- and C-band configurable power amplifier to enable dual band operation of avionic terminals. It shall demonstrate 200W peak power per channel and a 10dB dynamic rangewith a constant average power added efficiency of at least 50% for both bands, without compromising linearity performance. The breadboard shall include driver, main and peak amplifier,…

The objective of the activity is to develop and test a computer-assisted approach for in-situ operational health monitoring and anomaly detection for mission-critical platform mechanisms (e.g., reaction wheels, solar array drive mechanisms, antenna pointing mechanisms, laser communication terminals, etc.) in telecommunication spacecraft. Rather than relying on telemetry data, this activity will develop an approach using the full signal and sen…

The objective of this activity is to develop radiation tolerant platform technologies and semi-autonomous orbit transfer capabilityfor small satellite platforms. An experimental small satellite will be designed, manufactured and launched. The satellite will feature the platform technologies developed as well as a simple telecommunication payload allowing experiments during orbit raising to GEO as well as in GSO. Targeted Improvements: Enabling…

The objective of this activity is to develop the technology step needed to enable the use of optical interconnects at speeds of up to 112 Gbps. This should be demonstrated through testing of an integrated digital signal functions (ASIC and FPGAs) with the developed electro-optic transceiver photonic integrated circuits that form the optical I/Os to replace traditional electrical I/O.Targeted Improvements:Increase the data rate throughput up to…

The objective of the activity is to design, manufacture and test an accelerometer for drag compensation in Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO). Targeted Improvements: - Enabling real time compensation of drag by the propulsion system. - Miniaturisation of instrument by a factor 10 compared to existing payload grade accelerometers. - Increase accuracy by factor 10 compared to existing accelerometers used for orbital control.Description: While intere…

The objective of the activity is to design a system concept based on distinct transmit-only and receive-only satellites for the user link. The goal is to enable at the system level simultaneous two-way low data rate communication services such as Internet of Things, messaging, and VDES operating in frequency range from VHF to C-band. The system concept will be implemented and tested in an end-to-end system testbed. This includes the user termi…

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 an integrated structural antenna concept for high aspect ratio satellites. The antenna concept shall be frequency and size scalable. Critical breadboarding shall be carried out to evaluate the concept for mobile satellite communication systems in Low Earth Orbit. Targeted Improvements: Enabling stackable satellites with efficient launch volume occupation with an improvement of 30% in comparison to e…

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…

The objective of this activity is to implement and test the signal processing portion of a 5G LEO satellite payload capable of handling several high throughput beams assuming an active antenna configuration. The demonstrator shall be based on a processor capable of controlling a reconfigurable beam-forming network (BFN) and performing signal (re-)generation andchannelisation of 5G waveforms. Targeted Improvements: Enable 5G regenerative payloa…

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 this activity is to form a European consortium and to develop a solar array test approach as needed for the preparation of the ECSS E-20-08 handbook, in the case of a design or process change. The new test approach will be validated by Development Validation Testing (DVT) coupons. Targeted Improvements: Substantial reduction (50%) in the delta-qualification time of solar panels, which deviate slightly from existing qualified d…