ESA Open Invitation to Tender: 1-10623
Open Date: 23/04/2021 10:17 GMT +3
Closing Date: 14/06/2021 13:00 GMT +3

The aim of future telecom satellites is to become part in the terrestrial high capacity network in a seamless integrated manner, providing capabilities not available in purely terrestrial communication systems (e.g., large coverage, lower latency, cost advantage in sparsely populated regions, no geographical obstructions, etc.), rather than continuing the provision of services in an isolated way, or offering satellite bandwidth to internet service providers. Indeed, satellite communications do still play an important rolein reaching areas that are not (yet) connected with fibre or wirelessly to mobile cell stations, but satellite services are nowadaysnot yet an integral part of the terrestrial network architecture. Optical communication technologies are considered to be one of the next major revolutions in satellite communication, bringing unprecedentedly high levels of transmission rates, data security and resilience. The new project HydRON (High Throughput Optical Network) ambitions to seamlessly integrate the space optical transport network into the terrestrial high capacity network infrastructure: the “Fibre in the Sky”. In HydRON, it is envisaged “all-optical payloads” being interconnected by means of optical inter-satellite links, optical feeder links and on-board processing capabilities compatible with broadband switching / routing operations in the Tbps regime (Terabit per second), furnishing the “bridges” for a truly”Fibre in the Sky” network. In order to evaluate the feasibility of HydRON performance requirements and to support the trade-offs of the HydRON design drivers, a HydRON Simulator Testbed is required. The HydRON Simulator Testbed will be used as a tool to consolidate the HydRON Mission concept, system functionalities and the design of the end-to-end system architecture. The test results will support the HydRON Demonstration System trade-offs, the baseline selection and the performance specification at lower level(s) (e.g.space/ground segments, network management, equipment). The very early demonstration of the HydRON end-to-end system architecture isrequired to mitigate the risk for the implementation phase of the HydRON Demonstration System. The HydRON Simulator Testbed activity will (i) design a Testbed to simulate HydRON end-to-end performances, considering various network implementation options (for bothspace and ground segments), different type of external user interfaces and user traffic; (ii) develop the HydRON Testbed to supportthe HydRON Mission definition and the design of the HydRON Demonstration System. The HydRON Simulator Testbed will be thoroughly evaluated to verify its suitability to estimate the performances of the HydRON Mission and the HydRON Demonstration System.

Estabilishment: ESTEC
ECOS Required: No
Classified: No
Price Range: > 500 KEURO
Contracts Officer: Claudia Ria Piesche
Initiating Service: TIA-TIS
IP Measure: N/A
Prog. Reference: E/0533-17A – OP-Hydron
Tender Type: Open Competition
Open To Tenderers From: CA+CH+CZ+DE+GB+IT+PL+RO
Technology Keywords: 6-A-III-Networking Techniques / 16-A-I-Overall Optical System Definition, Design and Engineering
Products Keywords: 2-L-5-a-SW for RF Comm. design, analysis, simulation, etc. / 2-M-4-c-Modelling tools (Model development, Non real-time execution, Code generation,…) / 4-A-2-b-Satellite and Ground Segment Simulators (e.g. simsat, eurosim, etc.)