On 16-19 February 2016, the Final Presentation Days for Payload Technologies and Products took place at ESTEC, ESA's technical facility located in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. The four-day event was hosted jointly by the RF Systems, Payloads & Technology Division (TEC-ET) and the Payload Technologies and Products Section (TIA-TTP) of ESA.
Of the more than 125 attendees, more than half were from industry, with the remainder made up of academic researchers, ESA staff members, and ESA national delegates.
Presentations were given for a wide range of recently completed R&D activities, including those from ARTES Advanced Technology (formerly ARTES 5.1) and ARTES Competitiveness and Growth (formerly ARTES 3.4 and 5.2),TRP, NPI, ITI and EGEP programmes.
The activities supported by TEC through its research programmes focussed on basic payload research, while those supported by TIA through the ARTES programme focussed on technologies with a higher level of maturity in terms of product development. Taken as a whole the event provided a unique glimpse into a broad spectrum of current payload technology and product development.
“By grouping these many final presentations together, the results of these activities are exposed to a much larger audience than is normally the case,” says ESA’s Massimiliano Simeoni, one of the event’s organisers. “Many of the attendees from industry came for the ARTES-related activities, but the event also exposed them to a great range of interesting technology being developed with the support of ESA’s TEC directorate. Such events serve as vital bridges to bring ESA’s extensive basic research closer to the world of industrial satcoms products and services.”
Developing technology to enable flexible payloads is one of the main themes of the R&D activities showcased during the event. Given the importance of the topic to the satellite industry, ESA is organising a workshop dedicated to it: 3rd ESA Workshop on Advanced Flexible Telecom Payloads, 21-24 March 2016, also taking place at ESTEC.
Image credit: ESA/C. Brace
