Within this study, it is proposed to perform a system study for a concept for manufacturing hardware where time is not the driving parameter and initial available resources are very limited. In the frame of exploration missions, complex trade-off will have to be made to find out the best balance between the ISRU (In Situ Resources Utilisation) and the resources brought from Earth. The first ones will have to be further processed to become useful while the cost of the later will be tremendous.

A very high power solar array concept (in the order of 50-100 KW) can be efficiently designed only using very high voltage bus concept (around and above 300 Volts). Therefore, it is mandatory to develop and test high-voltage high-power solar array technology that is not yet available. Potentially this enables direct transfer of power to the electric propulsion system without voltage conversion equipment (hence saving mass).

Communication techniques can be introduced in the Navigation domain to improve the performances. Easyness of the generation/reception of the signal, reduction of the intrasystem interference, higher orthogonality of the spreading sequences, efficiency of the message encoding mechanism to achieve higher data rate or lower BER, robustness of the signal tracking, higher efficiency in the exploitation of the available bandwidth, robustness to hostile RF environment, jamming and anti spoofing capability etc. are areas for possible improvement.

Extensive measurements over solar maximum will be carried out during the MONITOR activity under the GNSS Evolutions Programme and other experiments from external organisations. They will be able to provide a better insight on several processes affecting GNSS performance and they will have a proper basis for improved modelling. Such activities does not focus on a deep analysis of specific effects and the actual modelling of effects currently not considerd on average models.

The state-of-the art GaInP/GaInAs/Ge triple-junction solar cell technology has reached its practical efficiency limits of around 30% beginning of life (BOL) and an excellent value of 26.5% end of life (EOL). A significant efficiency increase in the order of 3-5% absolute can only be realised by a change of the cell concept.

EChO requires MCT detectors with low readout noise and dark current, high quantum efficiency (over 0.4-2.5 um) and a low operational temperature (down to 40K). The LFSA required performances are mostly in line or less demanding than ECHO needs, in particular for the readout noise and overall ROIC performances. However, wavelength range and operational temperature need extension.

Protection of space assets is becoming more and more important now that vital services and applications are depending on space infrastructure. This is particularly true in the domain of navigation where an increased number of applications like safety of life aeronautical services, critical bank transaction are relying on the services provided by the GNSS systems as the primary if not the sole source of the time and position solution.Designing robust telecommanding and Mission receivers is therefore one of the mandatory requirements for the design of future systems.

A number of European Space Agency's (ESA) initiatives planned for the current decade require metrology level accuracy antenna measurements at frequencies extending from L-band to as low as 400 MHz. The BIOMASS radar, the Galileo navigation and search and rescue services could be mentioned among others.

The objective of this activity shall be to investigate very high power amplifiers based on solid state European GaN technology. Unlike the amplifiers available today, GaN technology shall offer the possibility to build such HPA with only one power module at the output.

The NGMP architectural design is currently under way in TRP contract 22279. Early prototypes shall be manufactured by the end of 2010 in commercial Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) technology (eASIC, UMC, TSMC 90nm). The present activity starts with the functional validation of the early prototypes. With feedback from this validation and from other beta users, the NGMP design will be consolidated, and manufactured as an Engineering Model in the target space technology, the 65nm by STM, which is currently being developed under TRP and FP7 activities.