ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO10211
Open Date: 14/12/2020
Closing Date: 26/03/2021 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 20.1TT.31
Prog. Ref.: CC-AT 4.0.1
Budget Ref.: E/0534-01G – CC-AT 4.0.1
Special Prov.: BE+DK+FR+DE+IT+NL+ES+SE+CH+GB+IE+AT+NO+FI+PT+GR+LU+CZ+RO+CA+HU+PL
Tender Type: C
Price Range: > 500 KEURO
Products: Ground Segment / Ground Station / RF equipment / Transmitter and Receiver assemblies, Frequency converters, …
Technology Domains: Ground Station Systems and Networks / Ground Communications Networks / Communication Network Technologies and Protocols
Establishment: ESTEC
Directorate: Directorate Telecom & Integrated Applica
Department: Telecom Technologies,Product&Systems Dep
Division: Technologies and Products Division
Contract Officer: Dorval, Nathalie
Industrial Policy Measure: N/A – Not apply
Last Update Date: 14/12/2020
Update Reason: Tender issue

Objective: The objective of the activity is to develop critical components (modulator and demodulator) mitigating RF-introduced impairments (e.g. phase noise, group-delay) in the feeder link of VHTS W-band gateways and related user terminals. The performance willbe tested in laboratory environment and the outcome will be available for possible DVB-S2X standard evolution. Targeted Improvements: This activity aims at limiting the link performance degradation due to W-band RF impairments to below 5% with respect to currentsystem throughputs. Description: The interest in W-band as feeder-link frequency band for high throughput satellites (HTS) stems from the significant cost reduction of the ground segment that its adoption allows. The increasing spectrum and orbit congestion at lowerfrequencies, together with the constantly growing data-rate demand, entail the use of multiple gateways for broadband satellite applications, thus increasing the cost of the ground segment. Using the available spectrum in W-band would significantly reduce thenumber of required gateways, and therefore decrease the overall cost of the ground segment. Currently, W-band is used in millimetre-waveradar research, military radar targeting and tracking applications, and other non-military applications. From the air interface point of view, the DVB-S2X standard might allow an effective usage of the W-band thanks to some of its features (very-low SNR modes andsuperframing). Nevertheless, some air interface adaptions might be required. This activity targets broadband applications with the user link in Ka-band and a transparent HTS. The activity shall assess the system sensitivity to all the impairments (including phasenoise and group delay distortion) stemming from the hardware components operating in the W-band, both at the gateway and in theHTS payload. To this purpose, a wideband modulator for the feeder link operating in W-band shall be prototyped together with the corresponding wideband user terminal demodulator. The testbed shall be developed and shall include prototypes of the gateway and of the payload RF front-ends. The prototypes of the modulator and demodulator shall include possible architectural adaptations to efficiently cope with the RF impairments typical of the W-band. The testbed shall be as representative as possible of the corresponding realistic scenario.