Nebula Public Library

The knowledge bank of ESA’s R&D programmes

Format: 2023
Format: 2023
Format: 2023

467 results found
No items

Direct Radiating Antenna arrays (DRAs) are an emerging solution to offer multiple beam, cellular-like coverage to satellite communication services, evolving to meet the demands for high data-rates, capacity and availability over a flexible area. A DRA array provides several advantages to the satellite: for downlink, an improved Equivalent Isotropically Radiated Power (EIRP), due to the smaller size of the beam; for uplink, an improved Gain-to-noise-Temperature (G/T).

Netherlands

TDE

T506-701EF

TNO, Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research

-

Solar cells for space applications are typically designed to provide highest performance values at End of Life (EOL) conditions, meaning after a typical to be expected degradation due to particle irradiation and under a constant sun spectrum without perturbation by any atmosphere. Typically, these solar cells are used without modification also for Martian missions. However, due to the fact that the spectral conditions on Mars are significantly different from typical space missions, those solar cells are not at all optimised for providing highest performances.

Germany

TDE

T303-705EP

AZUR SPACE Solar Power GmbH

-

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

-

ESA?s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission launched in 2009 is based on an L-band interferometric radiometer providing images of the entire earth globe every three days. Several studies have been conducted in the past few years to define a different antenna configuration which could allow to improve the image quality and simultaneously reduce the imaging time.

Spain

TDE

T107-701EF

AIRBUS DEFENCE AND SPACE S.A.U.

-

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

-

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

-

LEDs have been used for years within space missions and are even offered as space qualified components. Those parts are packaged in very specific cases, providing a full hermeticity at few typical wavelengths and offering limited optical power. Such LEDs are used to convey a signal from electric to optical or for optical wavelength reference.
;

Spain

TDE

T323-701ED

ALTER TECHNOLOGY TUV NORD S.A.

-

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

-

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

-

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.

-