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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?

All satellites must have the ability to correct for the high rotational tip-off rates after initial release from the launch vehicle. On current navigation satellites, de-tumbling is usually achieved in short duration using the onboard chemical propulsion thrusters. With future Navigation satellites looking at using all-electric propulsion satellites, these manouevres are to be performed by xenon-fed auxiliary thrusters. COTS (xenon cold gas) auxiliary thrusters are limited in the max thrust level provided and the de-tumbling duration, in the absence of chemical thrusters, is a concern.

New scientific missions require Ka-Band high power sources for the data return. Limitation on maximum antenna size and minimum required data rate can be overcome by increasing the transmitted power. At present, there is no off the shelf TWT(A) in the allocated frequency band (31800-32300 MHz) in Europe with 120W saturated output power. Instead, a 250W TWT in the range 17700 - 20200 MHz is under qualification and the feasibility of 100W TWT in the range 37500 - 42500 MHz has been recently demonstrated by test in a breadboard.