Aluminium-based alloys obtained by a rapid solidification process have been successfully used for manufacturing optical mirrors. The maximum size of this type of aluminium mirrors is limited by the size of the billet, i.e. currently considered to be approximately 500 mm with and homogeneous microstructure. Consequently, the current manufacturing processes allow to produce mirrors with an effective area limited to a maximum dimension of 400 mm . The need for larger Aluminium-based mirrors is coming from scientific missions that require a large collecting area.

The Doherty concept has proven to be a very effective technique for designing amplifiers, which maintain a high efficiency over a wide range of operating conditions. This technique is extensively used in terrestrial applications like base stations where power efficiency is getting more and more attention. Power efficiency is also of concern for space and the Doherty concept could certainly help in designing more efficient PAs. Ka-band is now being considered for mobile services that could offer very high capacity as compared to the existing ones at L-band.

Accurate localisation of assets on planetary bodies will be crucial in future exploration missions when it comes to autonomous vehicles navigation and accurate positioning. On Earth, dedicated systems in L-band are typically used for navigation and localisation.

Although Single Event Effects (SEE) have been known for many years to be a major source of anomalies in spacecraft, problems are multiplying because of technology evolution and the inability of analysis techniques to keep pace. New mechanisms in SEE generation are emerging, and "classical" analysis algorithms and software (such as CREME-96) are becoming rapidly outdated due to their major simplifications in the physics and in the treatment of the sensitive "bit" geometry.

Electroless plating technique has been extensively used for many decades not only in the space domain, but also in other high end industrial sectors. The existing electroless techniques works very well in case of regular and flat geometries but in case of complex shapes the thickness uniformity of the deposition layer can be an issue. The current research activities related to this topic are mainly focused on the optimization of the electronic bath using ionic liquid.

An Operations Ground Segment consists of a complex system of systems, each of which is a source of high-throughput events e.g. telemetry, Out-Of-Limits, operating/data/network system logs. Today the majority of MC systems support a particular subsystem, have limited processing / analysis capabilities (e.g. limit checking, synthetic parameters, filters) and support only stateless operations.