The objective of this activity is to design, manufacture and test a compact power-flexible K-Band Up-converter / Solid-State power amplifier for its use in K-Band downlinks in Low Earth Orbit EO small-size missions.

Payload data transmitters in Earth Observation (EO) missions are moving from X-band to K-band (i.e. 25.5 to 27 GHz), where the downlink data rates can be increased due to the four times higher availability of bandwidth than in X-band. In addition, an interest is certainly growing in the field of small-size satellites and cube-sats. Therefore, there is a need to reduce the size/mass of the K-Band transmitter while increasing the DC-to-RF efficiency in order to relax the constraints of the thermal management systems at platform level. In the frame of the Interagency Operations Advisory Group (IOAG), a group of Agencies led by ESA and NASA made the recommendation to promote and accelerate the deployment of the 26 GHz data downlink technology, for all types of Low Earth Orbit satellites and to enhance the system with multi-Gb/s downlink capability. With the advent of semiconductors technologies such as GaN, higher levels of RF power density and overall efficiency can be achieved at the same time. Therefore, it is an attractive solution for the final goal of a compact and power efficient K-band downlink, able to support high speed data links. The target development shall demonstrate > 10W of modulated RF output power, > 40 dB of gain and overall efficiency > 25% in the K-Band frequency band (25.5-27 GHz). The proposed K-Band up-converter/SSPA module shall include up-conversion from an intermediate frequency (e.g. X-Band) input signal to K-Band, before amplification. The X-band signal supplied to the module shall be either a modulated or unmodulated carrier. In addition, the overall architecture shall account for the demand in terms of RF Output power flexibility of at least 3 dB range while preserving the efficiency figures, in order to comply with ITU regulations and non-uniform traffic demands. The work logic shall be as follows: - Review of current processes worldwide (GaAs and GaN) able to comply with RF requirements,- Propose different design alternatives (architectural and technologies), - Design of HPA MMICs in the selected technology, - Design of Up-converter MMICs in selected technology, - Manufacture and test MMICs, - Manufacture, assemble and test a breadboard Up-converter / SSPA with the manufactured MMICs, - Final reporting, conclusions and roadmaps towards higher TRL.