For planet earth and beyond
Reflector antennas are by far the most used technology for telecom satellite and ground station antennas. TICRA, a leading provider of cutting-edge reflector antenna modelling software based in Copenhagen, has now under the ARTES programme made great strides in antenna design – with a product that dramatically simplifies the whole process.
For the first time ever, a telecommunications satellite has used an iodine propellant to change its orbit around Earth.
The small but potentially disruptive innovation could help to clear the skies of space junk, by enabling tiny satellites to self-destruct cheaply and easily at the end of their missions, by steering themselves into the atmosphere where they would burn up.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are planning a spacewalk to install a high-speed satellite link that will improve their connections with Europe.
The system will enable astronauts to connect at home broadband internet speeds – delivering a whole family’s worth of video streaming for communications and a data pipeline connecting the scientific experiments aboard the Station to researchers in Europe.
In the upcoming Announcement of Opportunity economic operators are invited to propose a Demonstration Project addressing the theme of:
Space for Smart and Uncrewed Shipping: downstream services enabled by 5G and advanced positioning, navigation and timing (PNT)
A centre for innovation that will showcase how space can enable future generations of telecommunications and connected applications is being developed.
The ESA Council appointed Dr Josef Aschbacher as the next Director General of ESA, for a period of four years. He will succeed Prof. Jan Wörner, whose term of office ends on 30 June 2021.
Providing exceptional value for in-orbit technology demonstration at a minimal expenditures, ESA’s Hosted Payloads will have clocked 7 years of continuous operations in-orbit at the end of 2020. At the forefront of laser and Q/V band communications, the Hosted Payloads demonstrate ESA’s Partnership Projects ability to develop, implement and validate innovative end-to-end systems.
The Preliminary Design Review for the Dual Solid State Power Amplifier (DSSPA) developed by SENER (Spain) in the frame of ESA’s Pacis 3 Partnership Project has been completed successfully. The very first test results obtained on the 10W X-band DSSPA prototype have been presented and exhibit impressive performances.
Getting out in the fresh air is more ‘in’ than ever this year, and with FATMAP’s adventure platform, activities in the Great Outdoors have never been easier to plan. With the support of ESA Space Solutions, FATMAP have now added some crucial ‘live data’ enhanced features, which take the application to new heights.
The ‘maker’ movement in electronics and the meteoric rise of smartphones have led to a surge in small satellites - such as nano- and picosatellites (picosats are the tiniest of smallsats). But something has to propel these pocket-size payloads into space. The AlbaPod is the first flight-proven six unit (6p) ‘PocketQube’ or picosat satellite deployer, whose successful demonstration was performed under the ARTES Competitiveness & Growth programme.