GEAR | ESA CSC

Space for 5G

Status

Ongoing
Status date

2025-07-08
Activity Code

3F.011

Objectives

GEAR aims to develop an improved version of the 5G non-terrestrial networks (NTN) Release 18 protocol stack. The main topics covered are: (i) review the latest 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) specifications for the NTN scenario starting from Release 17 and identify the missing models and functionalities by selecting the library that needs to be enhanced with Release 18 functionalities; (ii) identify the key functionalities planned for Release 19 to be added to the library; (iii) software design and development of the new functions in the user equipment and gNB protocol stack to support bidirectional communication links for geostationary orbit (GEO) and non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite networks; (iv) in-depth laboratory validation of the new functionalities of the software library.

Challenges

The key challenge of GEAR activity are:

Review of the latest 3GPP specifications for the NTN scenario (i.e. Release 17) and identification of missing models and functionalities of the selected library to be enhanced with Release 18 functionalities;
Identification of key functionalities foreseen for Release 19 to be added to the library;
Software design and development of new functions in the UE and gNB protocol stack to support bidirectional communication links for GEO and NGSO satellite networks;
Thorough laboratory validation of the functionalities of the new software library. This activity should be targeted to the publicly available licensing model (e.g. GPL license).

Benefits

GEAR contributes to the current and future implementation of products in the field of NTN and TN connectivity.

Currently, the consolidation of Release 17 is already stimulating initiatives for the effective implementation of products to support the implementation of NTN 5G NR E2E network elements.

Indeed, the benefits for the products encourage the technological growth of the EU segment, of satellite access technologies in all its meanings (GEO and NGEO), such as the improvement of on-board processing, the gNodeB access gateway on the ground and on board (see the previous sentence) and the core network.

The development of the NTN protocol stack is one of the key factors benefiting the products, effectively enabling access to the satellite in an effective and continuous way, taking into account its peculiarities and difficulties (availability, latency, Doppler effect, etc.). In this sense, NTN Release 18 will further accelerate the potential of access to space networks and related services.

Current status

GEAR project started on 16 June 2025, via a kick-off meeting with the ESA team.