Overview of Projects for November

 

New Media Support Centre
Three project teams headed by CNES of France, FOKUS of Germany, and Siemens of Austria concluded investigations into the development of a New Media Support Centre (NMSC) to benefit the European / Canadian space community and ESA member states. Similarly, Space Engineering of Italy completed a project to define the requirements of the System Simulation Unit (SSU), the constituent of the NMSC.

Standardisation issues were also addressed in two related projects led by IABG of Germany and Joanneum Research of Austria respectively. Their goal is to develop new methods of providing Internet services over DVB broadcast networks and also investigate the future use of the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). The two parallel projects follow guidelines established by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

EADS Astrium of France and the UK began a project called AMETHYST to study two types of development scenario in the Mobile Satellite Service market. Namely 'Early Entry missions' and 'Geo-Mobile network evolutions'. EADS Astrium of France is also in the process of developing TRACKS, a van fitted out with a variety of equipment including a VSAT terminal, GSM Mast antenna. EADS Astrium of the UK and Tesat Spacecom of Germany concluded a study assessing the System Design Of Future Communications Satellites Using High Temperature Superconductors.

The German company Thales Electron Devices started a common project with ESTEC to improve the high power S-Band Travelling Wave Tube and also to improve on the existing L-Band tube used for the operational satellite system WORLDSTAR.

A Survey of the Telecommunications Industry in Greece, ESA's newest project contributor, was begun by Kantor Management Consultants of Greece. Their goal is to identify companies that are active in the Telecommunication Market define the major areas for a possible co-operation between the Industry of Greece and the Agency.

Finally, a significant project to bring reliable mobile broadband communications services came in the form of the BGAN Extension from Inmarsat of the UK. An agreement between ESA and Inmarsat was signed on 15 December.

To view any of the project pages mentioned in this article just click on the appropriate link on the right side of this page.