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…

Objective: The objective of the activity is to develop CGH to replace classical optics (e.g. (dichroic) beam splitters, lenses...)in optical/quantum communication terminals. In addition, performance simulations shall be validated on CGH test samples. Several CGH device shall be manufactured, and their performance tested. A-thermal designs shall be investigated. Targeted Improvements: 50% reduction in the size, footprint and mass of classical b…

The objective of the activity is to design, manufacture and test a DC/DC converter (at least 1kW and up to 5kW range) breadboard with an input voltage of up to 300 V.Targeted Improvements:- Increase bus voltage levels up to 300 V,- Reduce harness mass by more than 100 kg (in high power platforms),- Reduce power losses by 90%.Description:Current electrical units only operate up to 100 V. However, employing bus voltages in excess of 100V, could…

The objective of the activity is to develop RF situational awareness functions for telemetry and telecommand receivers. Algorithms and a test-bed shall be developed and experimentally tested in laboratory conditions based on several representative operational cases.Targeted Improvements: Enabling interference and signal identification and classification using telecommand and telemetry signals. Description:Information obtained from RF (Radio Fr…

The objective of the activity is to design, manufacture and test low phase noise millimetre-wave VCOs based on a photonic integrated circuit for Q/V/W-band local oscillators. Targeted Improvements:- Improvement of 10 to 20 dB on phase noise performance as compared to state-of-the-art MMIC implementation- Compliance to phase noise requirements for Q/V and future W-band frequency convertersDescription: Very high throughput satellites call for th…

Objective: The objective of this activity is to develop and test a high data rate transceiver (TX-RX) demonstrator for coherent optical space-to-ground feeder links, with a high spectral efficiency. The demonstrator shall support coherent optical links with a data rate exceeding tens of Gbps. It shall demonstrate the increased spectral efficiency achieved by using advanced digital signal processing (DSP) techniques at both transmitter and rece…

Objective: This activity aims at investigating different wavefront sensor technologies in order to identify the best suited one for operation under strong atmospheric turbulence conditions in optical communication applications. Targeted Improvements: 100% increased wavefront sensor performance under strong atmospheric turbulence conditions. Description: Optical beams propagating through the turbulent atmosphere undergo phase and amplitude fluc…

The objective of the activity is to design, develop and test an engineering model (EM) of a Coarse Pointing Mechanism (CPM) featuring 250 mm free optical aperture diameter and pointing/tracking capabilities compatible with GEO-LEO, GEO-MEO, GEO-GEO, GEO-Moon, andGEO-ground optical links.Targeted Improvements:Increasing the apertures of space based optical communication systems from 135mm(EDRS) to 250mm improves the link budget by >10dB (i.e…

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 the activity is to define, develop and test in a breadboard (consisting of transmitter and receiver) a multi-dimensional quantum state encoding (e.g., spatial and polarisation quantum states) protocol suitable for QKD in free space through the atmosphere.

The objective of the activity is to develop, build and test a gas generator to reproduce the gas flow density and composition of a Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) environment with high fidelity for on-ground testing of air-breathing electric propulsion systems.Targeted Improvements:Enabling a European gas generators for ground testing of VLEO missions.Description: Electric propulsion technologies developed for Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) applicati…

The objective of the activity is to develop, manufacture and test an electric propulsion thruster that does not require a neutraliser to operate nominally with a minimum of 25% of thrust efficiency (based on operation with air as the propellant).Targeted Improvements:Increase thrust efficiency by more than 50% to reach a minimum of 25%.Description: Traditional Electric Propulsion (EP) technologies make use of an electron emitter, or cathode, t…

The objective of this activity is to develop and test handover, data routing and radio resource management techniques for a broadband satellite constellation in Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO). The techniques will be implemented, and their performance assessed in a software system testbed. Targeted Improvements:Enabling system techniques for VLEO broadband systems not existing today in ESA member states.Description: The VLEO orbit is now the centr…

The objective of the activity is to design, develop and test a very low Size, Mass and Power (SWaP) device able to assure time and frequency stability from one to two order of magnitudes better than high performance devices (e.g. oven cooked crystal oscillators).Targeted Improvements: Reduce the power consumption down to 100 mW for portable terminals.Description: Governmental communications feature the need to have high-performance synchronisa…

The objective of the activity is to develop and correlate an evaporation software model for long life (15 years and above) mechanisms (e.g. solar array drive mechanism, reaction wheels, electric propulsion and antenna pointing mechanisms) as needed for geostationary spacecraft. The developed evaporation software model will be validated through testing of mechanism test-vehicles. Targeted Improvements:- increase the accuracy of the current anal…

The objective of this activity is to develop, manufacture and test a scaled engineering model of a high linearity Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) module optimised for operation in the 47.5 - 51.4 GHz frequency band and suitable for integration in feed arrays for satellite communications. The LNA shall feature a high intercept point, achieving good performance without distortion or damage in a high interference signal environment.Targeted Improvement…

Objective: The objective of the activity is to design, manufacture and test a photonic integrated circuit to realise a turbulence mitigation system based on spatial mode recombination for receiver turbulence mitigation in Optical Ground Stations. Targeted Improvements: Increase the optical downlink availability by 30%. Also enable automation of the optical ground station as it can operate without need for personnel. Description: Current turbul…

The objective of this activity is to develop and test a prototype of a Disruptive Tolerant Network (DTN) software node for the ground segment for usage in end-to-end data communication architectures, to support high speed Direct-to-Earth space links with bitrates up to 10Gbit/s. The DTN node shall be adaptable to state of art high speed modems and monitoring and control architectures.Targeted Improvements: Enable disruptive tolerant network no…

The objective of this activity is to develop a concept of a high-power output Butler matrix with integrated filtering transfer functions for multiport power amplifiers. The concept will be implemented and experimentally tested (including high power testing) in anengineering model with critical functions in Q, Ka or Ku band.Targeted Improvements:- 30% mass and size reduction.- Number of parts reduced of a factor 3.Description: Advanced telecomm…

Objective: The objective of the activity is to develop and test a laser safety system for Optical Feeder Link (OFL) operations based on AI/ML techniques. The activity shall emphasise on airspace safety measures to handle uplink operations with significant opticalpower. The safety system shall be capable to operate autonomously. Implementation shall be based on commercially available hardwareplatforms. The activity will also provide the testbed…

The objective of this activity is to define, develop and test in a test bed, routing algorithms and schemes, and other mitigation techniques that need to be implemented in different types of satellite networks (LEO, MEO and multi-orbit constellations) so as to mitigate the risk of routing-based DDoS attacks. The mitigations, which shall include all potential types, from optimised for DDoS resilience routing algorithms, to in-network filtering,…

Objective: the objective of the activity is the development and testing of a multi-purpose ground Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) Optical Receiver including a compact decoding set-up for secure key material generation. Key output is the standardization of interfaces a) from the telescope of the optical ground station and b) to the customer key management system.Targeted Improvements: The main target improvement of this activity is the optimisa…