ESA Open Invitation to Tender: 1-10683
Open Date: 14/10/2021 12:01 CEST
Closing Date: 12/01/2022 13:00 CEST

The objective of the activity is to design, manufacture and test an Oven Controlled Crystal Oscillator (OCXO) whose frequency maybemodified without the need to change the crystal, to significantly reduce equipment lead time. Targeted Improvements: Eliminate theneed for a customised or pre-aged crystal. Description: The use of oven controlled crystal Oscillators (OCXO) in telecommunicationpayloads is constrained by the long lead times needed to procure them. The time needed to tune the crystal resonator means that this equipment is often on the critical path of the payload delivery. The lead time could be significantly reduced if techniques were applied similar to those used in micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) oscillators. MEMS oscillators use a fractional phase locked loops(PLL) for synthesising the required output frequency. This approach is not adopted for OCXOs. Instead the single resonator is individually tuned and this heavily impacts on the delivery time. A similar solution to that adopted for MEMS oscillators would allow manufacturers to produce, characterise and stock standard frequency OCXO cores, from which the required output frequency could be obtained by frequency synthesis. This activity will determine the optimum phase noise performance achievable with a space qualify able fractional-N PLL. The design shall be based on an existing OCXO product onto which the synthesis chain can be added. In this activity,in order to demonstrate that the same OXCO core can be used to generate two different frequencies, two scaled engineering models demonstrating critical functions will be manufactured and tested. The phase noise will be characterised over temperature and equivalent performance to a traditionally designed OCXO will be demonstrated for different PLL division ratios. The scaled engineering modelsshall include the same frequency synthesis board, with different VCOs, each optimised for the HF and the VHF bands. The core OCXO standard frequency for each of the addressed frequency ranges will be defined during the study, taking into account the stringent phase noise requirement and the PLL intrinsic added noise. Procurement Policy: C(1) = Activity restricted to non-prime contractors (incl. SMEs). For additional information please go to EMITS news “Industrial Policy measures for non-primes, SMEs and RD entities in ESA programmes”.

Directorate: Directorate Telecom Integrated Applica
Estabilishment: ESTEC
ECOS Required: No
Classified: No
Price Range: > 500 KEURO
Authorised Contact Person: Nathalie Dorval
Initiating Service: TIA-TT
IP Measure: N/A
Prog. Reference: E/0534-01G – CC-AT 4.0.1
Tender Type: Open Competition
Open To Tenderers From: AT+BE+CA+CH+CZ+DE+DK+EL+ES+FI+FR+GB+HU+IE+IT+LU+NL+NO+PL+PT+RO+SE
Technology Keywords: 1-A-I-System Technologies for Payload Data Processing / 6-E-III-RF Devices
Products Keywords: 2-L-2/3/4.1-c-Analog: Power amplifiers (SSPA, TWTA,…) / 2-L-2/3/4.1-e-Analog: Comparators (Frequency/Phase)