PAGE CONTENTS
Objectives
The objective of this study was to assess the market potential and define a Roadmap for the development and commercial introduction of PLs embarking selected Photonic Equipment in future Telecommunication Satellites.
Challenges
Benefits on TLC payload, coming from the introduction of photonic technologies, have been deeply analysed in different Projects. Basically discussed benefits are related to Mass Saving, Reduced Number of units requested for a payload, Room Saving / easier Accommodation, Power Saving ,Repeater Design simplification, mechanical flexibility, Available bandwidth, switching/routing to large payloads where current technologies become impractical…. All these conclusions represent surely benefits for the Satellite and Equipment Manufacturers, and by extension for the Satellite Operators. The real challenge of this project is to analyse how, all these benefits, could be translated in economical return for both operators and industry (in terms of ROI and IRR).
Plan
During this project have been defined a step by step approach for the photonic technology development, defining the Design development plan for each step. The proposal is to start with the development of the photonic equipment needed by the P/L for a Broadband-small non-flexible mission, for which 35 months roughly of Development Time and 14.650 M€ roughly of Development NRE Costs have been estimated.
The schedule is driven by the PFGU development, 30months, including 5 months for the sub-assy integration and tests:
Second step foreseen the developments of the equipment needed by the payload for a broadband-large-flexible access mission. In this case, the development will take benefits of the previous developments and relevant NREC sustained costs. For this kind of payload the design development plan foreseen a 16 months of Development Time (to be added to the previous 35 months) and 5780 K€ Development NRE Costs (to be added to the previous 14650 K€).
For what concern the payload for Constellation Mission, the Microwave-Photonic alternative of multi-RF solution results in the following additional investment for Design and Development to TRL6:
This configuration does not require high port count optical switching and can also be foreseen in parallel with the first broadband mission, including low port count switches.
Current Status
In the frame of this project, a preliminary estimation of the investments to be sustained have been performed, resulting in around 32M€ in 51 Months. With these figures both ROI/IRR parameters have been evaluated with 10years timeframe. Final Financial parameters evaluation, considering a 50% of investment sharing with an European space partner, are reported in the following table:
The roadmap for the technology development and related activities to meet IRR figures, is scheduled in two main steps:
2017-2020 period:
- A first bread-boarding and testing project starting as soon as possible shall provide a step in TRL (final development and unit qualification) for a full P/L proposal to Operators by 2020.
- In parallel, an early IOD is foreseen in order to get a first flight experience of telecom photonic payload.
- 2020 appears as a realistic date as it combines market expectations and TRL.
2021-2025 period:
- The first photonic based commercial P/L will developed and fly featuring first FMs of photonic units. This will constitute a major milestone for capability and efficiency of Telecom P/L
- Assuming sustained increase of VHTS development, a progressive upgrade of products will be engaged, e.g. to cope higher frequency band usage ( Q/V band) or to improve the capacity
2025 appears as a realistic date for the Second generation of Photonic based payload (High port count photonic switch)
