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.

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SEE generation are emerging, and "classical" analysis algorithms and software (such as CREME-96) are becoming rapidly outdated due to their major simplifications in the physics and in the treatment of the sensitive "bit" geometry.

This work begins the material selection process for EVA suits based on initial inputs from the EAC team that is developing an ergonomic prototype space suit.

Passive intermodulation is a real threat to all types of payloads. In some cases, it could even lead to total lost of the spaceship. Despite of this, there is very weak understanding of the parameters that generate this unwanted interference as well as their influence in the amplitude of the interfering signal. In addition, there is a total lack of agreed testing techniques, procedures and methodologies as well as justified test margins, as has already been recently stated by the European community (National Delegations, satellite operators and Eurospace).

The use of higher frequencies is becoming necessary for supporting feeder links of High Throughput Telecom Satellites due to the larger bandwidths available. Q and V bands are now being considered as a baseline for next generation systems. The next step will be to look at W band. In order to understand the system sizing, it is necessary to have a good modelling of the propagation channel. So far no measurement campaign has been done, therefore it is needed to start characterizing the channel.

Control Moment Gyroscopes (CMGs) of compact size target the small satellite market, especially for agile attitude control of satellites with high-resolution optical instruments. With the ability to acquire high-resolution images, the swath width is typically limited by the narrow field of view of the instrument’s optics. In order to enlarge the field of view, an agile attitude control system is advantageous because the ground target area can be substantially expanded by pointing the entire satellite.

OOne important constraint in the sizing process of an ablative TPS for atmospheric entry vehicles is the temperature limit of the supporting heatshield structure and of the bonding material used to attach the TPS. This temperature limit is typically in the range of 150-180degC. For the CFRP the limiting factor is typically the resin. New resin materials (like cyanate ester or bismaleimide) have commercially become available in recent years and relevant CFRP materials been qualified towards higher temperature limits for other space applications (like solar arrays or antenna reflectors).

High-sensitivity GNSS receivers architectures are of interest in harsh propagation conditions in order to be able to keep tracking GNSS signals even at very low C/No conditions (typically down to around 10-20 dBHz, depending on the signal being tracked). For this purpose, open-loop techniques can be used in the estimation of the code delay and the carrier phase and/or frequency, targeting a more robust estimation of those observables. In this process, advanced signal estimation techniques can be applied for the optimum exploitation of e.g. multi-correlation samples.