Description
The objective of this activity is to design, develop and test a breadboard of high-power W-band travelling wave tube (TWT) to meet the requirements of Very High Throughput Satellites.Targeted Improvements:Enable a European source of W-band TWT with 5 GHz instantaneous bandwidth, 100 W power output and at least 30% efficiency.Description:High Throughput Satellites (HTS) and Very High Throughput Satellites (VHTS) already use Q/V band frequencies to achieve the required feeder link throughput. Exploiting the available spectrum at W-band in addition to the Q/V-band spectrum, together with smart gateway diversity techniques, has the potential to simplify the required ground network infrastructure significantly as the number of gateways can be reduced by an order of magnitude. High power, high efficiency amplification in W-band is a critical technology with several problems remaining to be solved, such as the design and manufacture of millimetre-size hardware components, slow wave structures and an effective thermal management system.Thisactivity will make use of enabling technologies to design, manufacture and experimentally test a W-band Travelling Wave Tube (TWT) high power amplifier capable of delivering 100 W RF output power with at least 5 GHz of instantaneous bandwidth. Technologies used for ground segment TWTs will be further developed and spun in. This includes micro-CNC milling of slow wave structures, vacuum tight bonding processes and very low loss RF window assemblies.Footnote: On Delegation Request activities will only be initiated on the explicit request of at least one National Delegation.