ESA Open Invitation to Tender: 1-10698
Open Date: 24/01/2022 14:51 CEST
Closing Date: 28/03/2022 13:00 CEST

The objective of this activity is to design, manufacture and test an integrated V-band receive front-end, including redundancy, for future telecommunication payloads. Targeted Improvements: Noise figure improvement of 1 dB compared to a conventional distributed architecture. Description: The use of V-band for satellite communications (47.5 – 51.4 GHz) will significantly reduce the number of gateway earth stations required in very high throughput satellite systems and consequently the overall cost of the ground segment. Current solutions are based on distributed architectures for the front-end receiver, which translates into an increased noise figure performance at V-band. Individual elements such as feed components and low noise amplifiers (LNA) have been developed as stand alone units in Europe and are not currently integrated and optimised for overall noise figure performance. A design and implementation approach with integration of multiple functions (LNA, redundancy, feed elements, filters, etc.) into a compact RF receive module will help to reduce signal losses and improve the payload antenna gain to noise temperature ratio (G/T) figure of merit. Several techniques to improve the noise figure will be investigated, such as overmode waveguide interconnection, reduction in connection lengths, optimisation of matching networks with non-standard impedance, low loss packaging techniques (e.g. flip chip), and adoption of low loss switch and filter technologies. A compact V-band RF receive front-end engineering model shall be designed, manufactured and tested to fully evaluate the proposed concepts and technologies for future payload applications.

Directorate: Directorate Telecom Integrated Applica
Estabilishment: ESTEC
ECOS Required: No
Classified: No
Price Range: > 500 KEURO
Authorised Contact Person: Florence Odette Jeanne Glandieres
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+EL+ES+FI+FR+GB+HU+IE+IT+LU+NL+NO+PL+PT+RO+SE
Technology Keywords: 6-E-II-RF Equipment
Products Keywords: 2-L-2/3/4.1-n-Other