One of the key disturbances to the test masses in space gravitational wave detectors and other free-fall experiments is the electrostatic charge induced in them through interactions with penetrating charged particles and their secondaries. The masses are normally behind heavy shielding and as charged particles penetrate, they slow, scatter and create a range of secondary particles through a variety of physical processes. As a consequence, the accurate tallying of the net charge is a complex and difficult problem.

Energy generation in Space poses a severe challenge, the answer to which may be the use of novel metamaterials for thermoelectric generators. Metamaterials can address this question by employing conventional materials and well-established fabrication technologies while leaving room for other approaches to increase the efficiency of thermoelectric generation. In the current study, we investigated possible configurations of metamaterials that could increase the efficiency of thermoelectric generators in Space.

The interest of having in the near future an available Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) service supporting future missions to and at the Moon is currently supported by both institutional and commercial initiatives. On the commercial side, multiple companies are developing business solutions targeting the Moon and several major European companies are proposing to team up to build a communications network on the Moon compatible to terrestrial standards. In parallel, NASA has recently announced its plans to a ?Return to the moon?

In December 2019, the 3GPP standardization group approved a dedicated work-item for the implementation of a new set of 5G New Radio (NR) specifications allowing the integration with mobile broadband satellite networks. This is the first time ever that the space industry has this challenging opportunity of a full integration with terrestrial cellular systems, and to benefit from very large economies of scale.

During its science phase EnVision will use ESTRACK antennas located at the three ESA deep space sites in New Norcia (Western Australia), Cebreros (Spain) and Malarg?e (Argentina), and optionally the DSN antennas located at the NASA sites of Canberra (Australia), Robledo (Spain) and Goldstone (United States of America). In order to increase the flexibility in the selection of the ground stations, or alternatively to increase the data volume, offline arraying between distant antennas is proposed during overlapping visibility slots.

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The growth of the human population, industrialization of developing countries and rising living standards for the population are continuously increasing global energy demand, that in the next 30 years is forecast to double.

ESA missions with downlink in X-band are limited to 10 MHz of bandwidth and 8.75 Mbps of data, using the current GAIA modulation. GAIA-NIR is requiring higher data rates and it is pushing the limits at X-band.The CCSDS-131.2-B standard defines 27 Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM) modes that are intended to allow fine control of information rate in a given bandwidth to optimise data throughput by minimising the required link margin.