PAGE CONTENTS
Objectives
The strategic objective behind the developments in the area of RF products is to provide a competitive solution for outdoor equipments in the interactive satellite terminals and VSAT domain and to increase the market share of Alcatel Space equipment for SATCOM applications.
In order to reach these goals, a comprehensive use is made of very recent integrated components developed for the wireless market and the strong expertise acquired over the years in the field of frequency sources and converters.
The products developed under this contract are located in two branches; a series of frequency up- and downconverters (C, Ku and Broadcast Ka band), a 5 Watt C band Block upconverter and a 20 Watt C band booster. Wherever possible a modular design approach was followed in order to enable reuse of certain key functions and components.
A second objective from onset of these developments was the recurring cost and should enable AAS-A to rival with the major competitors on the market.
 click for larger image |  click for larger image |
Challenges
Throughout the whole development process, the key parameters for the different frequency converters and outdoor products were high modularity and component cost optimisation.
By properly optimising the various internal frequency plans, commonality could be actively pursued through reusing the local oscillator modules, IF modules, filters, etc.
The increased quantity of common building blocks also allows us to reduce the recurrent cost after industrialisation of each unit.
Plan
Milestone name | Date |
| Kick Off | December 2002 |
| Specification Review (SPR) | June 2003 |
| Critical Design Review (CDR) | September 2005 |
| Final Review (FAR) | June 2006 |
Current Status
Definition phase of project was concluded successfully.
First full functional prototypes were ready in January 2006,
FAR for the frequency converters product line, 5W C BUC and 20W C band booster was completed in June 2006
In order to fit the current running commercial offers, a total of 10 C-band upconverters, 10 Extended C-band downconverters,10 Ku-band downconverters and 20 C band Block upconverters are in production.