Nebula Public Library

The knowledge bank of ESA’s R&D programmes

Format: 2023
Format: 2023
Format: 2023

135 results found
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Space application represents a challenge for the lubrication of tribological components from two perspectives – performance and cleanliness. Due to the vacuum of space, and in particular in the presence of sensitive (e.g. optical) components, an extremely low volatility is required to limit evaporation or outgassing, which can lead to lubricant loss and contamination issues.

Italy

Discovery

ETD 2023-03-b

MATERIALES GmbH

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The activity shall investigate the change in SEY (Secondary Emission Yield) properties due to storage conditions prior integration in the satellite. This parameter has a direct impact in the power handling (Multipactor threshold) of the RF component. The activity shall cover the changes in the threshold over time at typical storage conditions. To achieve successful results, the activity shall commence with a review of the Hatch-Williams curves with new test samples. These samples shall be used for the whole duration of the activity to study the aging process.

France

TDE

T706-402ET

ONERA

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The simultaneous development proposed in the frame of this activity will allow to optimize the commonalities between the two PPUs and to reduce the development costs by looking for similar electrical architecture, packaging concepts and technologies. Ultimately, the two PPUs resulting from this activity will be coupled with HEMPT and HET thrusters developed in the frame of two H2020 EPIC programmes.
 
The activity will be executed in 3 steps:
 

Belgium

GSTP

GT27?106EP

THALES ALENIA SPACE BELGIUM

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Nowadays power control units design is unique and it depends on the specific application. Should the needs change, a new development is needed, thus increasing the development time and the non-recurrent-costs. Given the critically of the power conditioning module, redundancy and triple majority voting are needed, adding complexity to the design.

Spain

TDE

T703-603EP

University of Oviedo Foundation

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On-board communication via serial link protocols such as SpaceFibre require Serializer/Deserializer (SERDES) at the physical layer, which connects two units (e.g. payload instrument, mass memory) via copper, backplanes, or optical transceivers with each other.

France

TDE

T723-612ED

NanoXplore SAS

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Within the domain of smart manufacturing, the acquisition of data is of fundamental importance. There is clearly a need to extract as much information from the manufacturing process as possible (big data) through the use of sensor technology and in line process monitoring. There are a wide range of sensors which are commercially available which are used in a number of manufacturing sectors (automotive, aerospace, etc). Types of sensors include temperature, pressure, strain, and acoustics.
 

Luxembourg

GSTP

GT1A-319MS

MAANA ELECTRIC SA

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Hardware/software (HW/SW) co-design refers to the simultaneous consideration of hardware and software within the design process, employing tools such as virtual platforms. A Virtual Platform is a software based system that can fully mirror the functionality of a target System-on-Chip (soc) or board, combining high-speed processor simulators and high-level, fully functional models of the hardware building blocks, to provide an abstract, executable representation of the hardware to software developers and to system architects.

Germany

TDE

T701-602ED

TERMA GMBH

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Space thermal engineering relies heavily on numerical models and test data for the
design and verification of products and vehicles. However, the numerical models can
require too much computing resources to be effective for certain activities, such as
design optimisation or worst-case assessment. The use of surrogate models to

United Kingdom

TDE

T721-B17MT

THINKTANK MATHS LIMITED

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There is increasing interest in intra-satellite optical communications, which can be higher bandwidth, lower power, and better EMC compared to the electronic counterpart. Optical transceivers are at the core of such links. for the terrestrial market where transceivers are often delivered in non-hermetic packages but for space applications, non-hermetic packaged devices present higher risk. However, if the reliability of non-hermetic packaged devices can be demonstrated it can lead to an order-of-magnitude cost reduction.
 

Spain

TDE

T723-608ED

ALTER TECHNOLOGY TUV NORD S.A.

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Achievements and status: 
• Flight heritage: Achieved TRL-8 on the CURIUM-1 mission for the UHF-TX functionality. 
• Commercialization: Outsourced the assembly process. Already delivered an EM and signed multiple contracts for EM & FM 
deliveries in 2025, among which is the HELEO mission, where LSF is part of a larger consortium. University teams constitute the 
majority of our client base.
• Community utilization: A modified version of the board is utilized by a university team on their CubeSat project.

Greece

GSTP

GT27-037ES

Libre Space Foundation

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