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 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 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 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, 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 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…

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 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…

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…

The objective of the activity is to design and validate the baseband receiver of a user terminal to compensate for beam squint adopting equalisation techniques. The goal is to maintain the end-to-end performance for wideband carrier, large phased arrays and large scanning angles.Targeted Improvements: Up to 3 dB link quality improvement for wideband carriers (500 MHz or larger) and large scan angles of representative active antenna array opera…

The objective of this activity is to design, develop and test a twin field Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) architecture, to enable end users to receive keys without compromising security when located up to several hundred kilometres away from the satellite opticalground station.

The objective of the activity is to develop and test a real time 100 Gbps erasure code (both coder and decoder components) for optical feeder link protection.Targeted Improvements:Ensure high availability nominally required in feeder links by exceeding 99.5% of link availability due to atmospheric turbulence.Description:The use of terrestrial COTS optical transceivers in optical ground-space and space to space link will enable high throughput…

The objective of the activity is to develop and prototype a free-space optical Frequency and Timing transfer solution over a coherent optical link optimised for the use case of linking critical infrastructure and metrology applications.Targeted Improvements:The two parameters to be improved over existing RF-based techniques are time and frequency transfer accuracy (factor 5 to 10 improvement), resistance to interference and robustness of the l…

The objective of the activity is to design, manufacture and test low-loss W-band RF passive equipment (filters, multiplexers and transmission lines) for future very high throughput telecommunication payloads. Targeted Improvements: Enabling technology for W-band payloads. Description: W-band has the potential to provide the feeder link capacity needed for future Very High Throughput Satellites (VHTS). The frequency allocation for this band all…

The objective of this activity is to design, develop and test channel estimation and adaptation techniques as needed for Q/V band feeder links of LEO/MEO constellation with regenerative on-board processors. An end-to-end system testbed will be developed that includes varying channel, antenna and hardware impairments in the downlink and uplink depending on the elevation angle. The testbed will include the baseband, analogue and RF domain to tes…

The objective of this activity is the design, development and test of a more energy efficient receiver hardware architecture at system level. The activity shall include the investigation of more efficient receiver hardware design, use of narrower time slices and waveforms aimed at reducing demodulator complexity and produce a breadboard prototype.Targeted Improvements:50% energy reduction in receivers in TV broadcast and broadband user termina…

The objective of the activity is to design, manufacture and test a highly efficient 20 W S-band Power Amplifier.Targeted Improvements:Efficiency higher than 70% - enabling technology for S-Band automotive applications.Description:Recent studies have shown the potential of satellite communications for 5G-connected cars. Although various frequency bands may be envisaged, the S-band can offer a simple systems architecture as well as a satisfactor…

The objective of the activity is to develop, implement and test a 100 Gbps class interface radiation mitigation IP core for programmable logic devices for application in Low Earth and Geostationary Orbits. This includes hardware radiation characterisation and testing. Targeted Improvements: 3 to 4 times improvement of high-speed serial link data rate (from 32 Gbps to 112 Gbps) under radiation conditions. Description: State of the art programma…

The objective of this activity is to develop, manufacture and test a highly efficient Q-band spatial power divider and combiner forapplication in Q-band Solid State Power Amplifiers (SSPA). Experimental performance verification shall be carried out on a 40 - 60 W (nominal operating point) Q-band SSPA breadboard. Targeted Improvements: Improved power added efficiency of 5 - 10% of Q-band SSPAs in comparison to the state of the art. Description:…

The objective of the activity is to design, manufacture and test surface mount chip inductors enabling low voltage (down to 0.8 V range) stability, fast transient response, high-speed switching capability and efficient power conversion of point of load(POL) converters, as needed for next generation digital integrated circuits in telecommunication satellites.Targeted Improvements:- Enablinga European source.- 20% mass and volume reduction and 2…