Projects

This project is aimed at providing to ESA a comprehensive understanding and perspective on the developing market for multimedia satellite services, within the context of the broader multimedia industry.

The study aims at identifying opportunities for European Union satellite operators and service providers in all countries acceding to the European Union in 2004 (Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovak Republic and Slovenia). In addition, a Desk Research study of telecomms capabilities of neighbouring countries (Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, FR of Yugoslavia, Romania, Albania, Bulgaria and Turkey) will be carried out.

This study aims at gaining a good understanding of the likely evolution of satellite broadcasting during the period 2001-2007 in order to adequately plan the required developments for the future generation of broadcasting satellites.

The survey moves from the identification of the Companies that are active in the Telecommunication Market and, through the characterisation of each Company profile, aims at defining the major areas for a possible co-operation between the Industry of Greece and the Agency.

The objective of this project is to conduct a study into the feasibility and viability of including a Short Messaging Service (SMS) within Galileo.

The ultimate technical goal is to qualify for 2006 / 2007 a life capable Hall effect thruster with specific impulse higher than 2500 s (50 % higher than the current state of the art) and a power as high as 5 kW (three times more than the current qualified European Hall effect thrusters).

The objective of this study is to improve the knowledge about propagation effects, climatological influence and propagation modelling for Satcom and Satnav systems providing services in tropical and sub-tropical regions.

The Mobile TV S-Band Repeater project aims to develop and qualify S-Band repeaters, ensuring Thales Alenia Space - España's leadership in future S-Band repeaters management opportunities.

The objective of this predevelopment activity for the new large European telecommunication platform is to develop, design, manufacture and test a new generation of deployable radiators with higher thermal performance and lower mass than existing aluminium/honeycomb panels.

SMM proposes the launch of one or more small-class geostationary satellites, featuring Ka-band spot beam payloads, in order to reduce satellite broadband service costs by an order of magnitude and bring them into line with terrestrial offerings.

The objective of this study is to assess the competitive situation between satellite and terrestrial communications networks in the Location Based Services market in the medium term (2005-2010).

The main objective of this study is to provide the European industry with pragmatic information and guidelines for the implementation of DVB-RCS services in two target regions, Latin America and Africa.

The objective of the activity is to develop an Active Pixel Sensor (APS) based star sensor compliant with the Alphabus/Large Platform Development. The pre-development activities are important to reduce the schedule and technical risk of the overall large platform development. The purpose of this activity is to analyse the economic interest, to develop and to test an elegant breadboard of an APS based star sensor.

The main objective of this study is to explore the grounds for the development and operation of a European stratospheric platform based on a sound analysis of possible service areas - mainly in the area of telecommunications, assessment of available and future technologies, to perform a conceptual design for the best suited platform concept answering the needs of future telecommunication markets.

The objective of this study is to assess the feasibility and commercial viability of a scalable approach using smaller satellites for providing satellite communication to new markets, services and applications.

The Project will demonstrate the concepts and schemes proposed for the end to end integrated communications scenarios, with focus on the provisioning of QoS aware communication services across heterogeneous domains.

The objective of this activity is to assess the feasibility of a high-resolution accelerometer in order to increase the station keeping autonomy in relation with the electric engine of the @BUS platform.

The Objective of the Project is the development of a Study on the current status and the expected evolution of High Definition Television deployments via Satellite in the world, with the aim of identifying which are going to be the potential business development of such new applications in Europe and Canada.

The activity integrates Raemis 5G core network platform with Non-Terrestrial Radio Access Networks, providing a next generation core network for satellite-based access compliant with 3GPP Release 17 standards. Focus is placed on the applications making use of these networks including Narrow band IoT, public safety and remote industry. Remote Industry may include verticals such as Mining, Oil & Gas or Agritech where poorly connected areas can benefit from 5G core network connectivity over Non-Terrestrial Networks. These industries can make use of narrow band IoT services for sensors and telemetry, low latency IoT services for industrial automation and public safety services for workers in these challenging environments. The gNodeBGW and the ability to deploy a 5G core across multiple regions using cloud-based technology is key to the successful deployment of NTN. Although the product is not dependent on satellite technology the deployment of NTN using satellite is dependent on the product proposed in this document. Enabling 5G cellular across multiple jurisdictions requires a dispersed 5G core that can home route data and locally break out data using various classifications that are defined by legislation in each jurisdiction. (for example lawful interception, commercial roaming agreements etc).

Today, CubeSats can be considered mature and low-cost platforms for providing commercial telecommunication services. To allow building flexible telecommunication services and systems, this activity develops a modular active phased array antennas ready to be accommodated on CubeSats with different form factors.

Exploring spin-in opportunities in key industry sectors to define development potentials that can benefit the satellite communications sector.

The program aims to demonstrate direct 5G broadband access from LEO to small aperture terminals by implementing 3GPP Non-terrestrial Networks (NTN) specifications. The mission includes a feasibility study for 5G broadband via SmallSats, and an in-orbit demonstration of a 12U CubeSat to validate high-throughput, bidirectional K/Ka band connectivity over rural and suburban scenarios

Satellite signal processing using an off-the-shelf AI chipset project is to develop and validate AI-based signal processing techniques for satellite telecommunications such as signal identification, spectrum monitoring, spectrum sharing, and signal demodulation using Off-theShelf AI accelerators.

Development of a high performing Q/V Band Direct Quadrature Demodulator RFIC with an initial study of potential demodulator architectures, to be used in a digital beamforming application for future Q/V feeder links operating in the 47.2-52.4 GHz band with the following design implementation, fabrication and validation.

Optical feeder links of satellite constellation networks offer very high data rates and do not require frequency coordination, but can be affected by frequent disruptions due to cloud blockages. This project investigates, designs and demonstrates optical feeder link site-diversity mechanisms for satellite constellation networks to achieve the availability required for telecommunications services.

5g NTN g-NodeB (gNB) in the sky: first step to extend global network system in the space.

The proposed activity is the development and validation of a 160W Ka-band (27.5 - 31GHz) (Solid State Power Amplifier) SSPA with a European packaged 30W high-power amplifier (HPA) microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) targeting the need for professional up-link station of geostationary satellites and satellites constellations.

The role of the product in the context of the overall system/service of its target users is to provide a high power SSPA adapted to the future ground stations for satellites constellations.

The target for the packaged 30W HPA is, in addition to ground stations, to address the need for lower power user terminals.

Tech2CONNECT, led by CONNECTED, aims to develop a comprehensive IoT narrowband connectivity solution from space. Defining service elements and its configurations, and regulatory compliance in its Definition Phase, the Technology Phase focuses on refining and testing the space and network segments, including an Engineering Model of the payload and the initial implementation of the 5G NB-IoT NTN protocol stack.

The NGHT SmallSAT – Ground Direct to Earth (DTE) Laser Communication project develops a compact, low-cost, DTE laser communications system capable of providing up to 10 Gbps to meet the increasing demand for secure, high-data rate communications systems.

The objective of the project is to develop a compact magneto-optical trap, which can be used as a prototype for a quantum memory based on cold atomic gas for space applications. In the development, special attention is paid to the miniaturisation of the magneto-optical trap to reduce the size, weight and power consumption of the later quantum memory.

The Internet of Things (IoT) requires global coverage, which will only be possible to achieve via Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTNs). Release 17 onward of the 3GPP® specifications include NTN capabilities, with manufacturers of NTN IoT products needing a laboratory based test-bench to test NTN Narrowband (NB)-IoT devices in a simulated space environment. Additionally, satellite network operators need the capability to evaluate system operation long before any satellites are in orbit.

The capabilities of autoencoders are well known and space researchers and enthusiasts have developed multiple systems that improve the performance of the state-of-the-art compressor for space applications, limiting the bandwidth usage and consequently reducing costs.

In the framework of this activity, IngeniArs improves the useful data-rate by optimising the data to be transmitted via Variation Autoencoder AI models.

Such models can reduce the amount of data to transfer, encoding the information into a set of points within the AI model latent space. These points are then restored into the original information (the compression is lossy).

To validate these models, different use-cases (telecommunication, video stream, image transmission) are tested by highlighting how these AI models can enhance both transmission (upstream) and reception (downstream) systems.

Finally, for the upstream segment, a feasibility study related to porting the developed models into GPU@SAT, a space-grade AI accelerator developed by IngeniArs, is conducted.

Ka-band TX and RX beamforming module for low-cost Satcom-On-The-Move (SOTM) earth terminals.

An advanced collision avoidance service, especially targeting the LEO market and mega constellations, the project leverages the current commercial solution, Focusoc, aiming to add and merge information from different data suppliers to provide a fast and reliable response to final operators.

The goal is to develop and demonstrate in-orbit a 5G UE (terminal) nanosatellite subsystem that can be integrated into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites and capable of connecting to 5G networks here on Earth.