ESA Open Invitation to Tender: 1-11171
Open Date: 28/06/2022 09:18 CEST
Closing Date: 11/10/2022 13:00 CEST

The objective of the activity is to develop a simplified, scalable ball bearing family and a suitable end-to-end manufacturing and integration process, leading to a COTS approach for a wide range of mechanisms used on telecommunication satellites. Targeted Improvements: Enabling a common approach for the use of commercial ball bearings with a 50% reduction in lead time. Description: Ball bearings are widely used in space mechanisms for telecommunication applications (mainly solar array drive mechanisms, thruster pointing mechanisms and antenna pointing mechanisms). Currently, each set of bearings is ordered commercially and individually tailored by the supplier for each application within the mechanism (e.g. dry or liquid lubricant, number of bearings, geometry configuration, hard or soft preload applications). This activity seeks to define an alternative methodology. The activity will design and develop a simplified, scalable ball bearing family and a suitable end-to-end manufacturing and integration process, leading to a COTS approach. This includes development and testing of new concept(s) of ball bearing preload adjustment. Preloading is highly important to ensure mechanism precision and to provide an optimal load distribution for launch and long life in-orbit operation for telecommunication applications. Typically, today, the preloading adjustment achieved is +/- 20%. This activity aims to achieve +/-5%. Adapting a COTS approach will reduce associated lead times that in many cases leads to programmatic issues and project delays. The activity will offer the mechanism designer a common and reliable approach in defining ball bearings for telecommunication mechanisms. The activity will deliver a standardised set of COTS ball bearings suitable for use in satellite telecommunication applications. Testing of at least two breadboards will be carried out to cover application cases ranging from solar array drive mechanisms, thruster pointing mechanisms to antenna pointing mechanisms

Directorate: Directorate Telecom Integrated Applica
Estabilishment: ECSAT
ECOS Required: No
Classified: No
Price Range: > 500 KEURO
Authorised Contact Person: Adriana Lucas
Initiating Service: TIA-TTS
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+GR+ES+FI+FR+GB+HU+IE+IT+LU+NL+NO+PL+PT+RO+SE
Technology Keywords: 15-G-II-Engineering Tools
Products Keywords: 2-D-1.1-b-Motors: Brushed DC, Brushless DC, Piezo-electric, Stepper, Voice Coil,…