ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO10329
Open Date: 18/06/2020
Closing Date: 13/08/2020 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 20.1ET.09
Prog. Ref.: Technology Developme
Budget Ref.: E/0901-01 – Technology Developme
Special Prov.: BE+DK+FR+DE+IT+NL+ES+SE+CH+GB+IE+AT+NO+FI+PT+GR+LU+CZ+RO+PL+EE+HU
Tender Type: C
Price Range: 200-500 KEURO
Products: Satellites & Probes / System Engineering Software / System Modelling & Simulation / Modelling tools (Model development, Non real-time execution, Code generation, …)
Technology Domains: Electromagnetic Technologies and Techniques / Wave Interaction and Propagation / Wave Propagation
Establishment: ESTEC
Directorate: Directorate of Tech, Eng. & Quality
Department: Electrical Department
Division: RF Payloads & Technology Division
Contract Officer: Hertzog, Hendriline
Industrial Policy Measure: C3 – Activities restricted to SMEs & R&D organisations, prefe…
Last Update Date: 18/06/2020
Update Reason: Tender issue

The use of low microwave frequencies for radars is key: It enables radar signals from sub-surface sounders to penetrate deep underthe Earth surface, it allows minimised temporal decorrelation in Synthetic Aperture Radars observations (e.g L-band SAR) and to generate high quality interferometric products, it opens up the bistatic use of signals of opportunity due to the presence of L-band navigation signals. However these VHF to L-band signals are highly sensitive to the state of the ionosphere which can create strong perturbations, or even block the signal. As the ionosphere strongly varies, and exhibits particularly complex behaviour at high latitudes it is critical to precisely assess its impact and derive mitigation techniques. This activity will consolidate the understandingofthe impact of ionosphere on these measurement techniques, derive quantitative performance degradation figures and to develop andtest mitigation techniques, with a focus on high latitude regions. This will contribute to feasibility assessment and performance improvement of the related mission concepts. This activity encompasses the following tasks:- review of the ionosphere spatio-temporal characteristics and impact on the measurement techniques (altimeter and sounder, polarimetric and interferometric SAR, GNSS-R altimetry);- assessment of the impact of ionosphere on observation quality (in a statistical sense) for a subset of mission concepts ofinterest;- development of mitigation techniques that could be applied to these mission concepts;- test and performance evaluationof these techniques for selected scenarios.In addition to the final report, the activity will deliver algorithmic description of the mitigation techniques and datasets corresponding to the test scenarios.Procurement Policy: C(3) = Activity restricted to SMEs RD Entities. For additional information please go to EMITS news “Industrial Policy measures for non-primes, SMEs and RD entities in ESA programmes”.