ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO9499
Open Date: 15/11/2018
Closing Date: 28/02/2019 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 18.1TF.17
Prog. Ref.: Future Preparation 7
Budget Ref.: E/0501-01C – Future Preparation 7
Special Prov.: BE+DK+FR+DE+IT+NL+ES+SE+CH+GB+IE+AT+NO+FI+PT+GR+LU+CZ+RO+PL+CA
Tender Type: C
Price Range: 200-500 KEURO
Techology Domains: Ground Station Systems and Networks / Ground Station System / Advanced Ground Station Design Concepts
Establishment: ESTEC
Directorate: Directorate Telecom & Integrated Applica
Department: Telecom Technologies,Product&Systems Dep
Division: Future Projects Division
Contract Officer: Mezzadri, Monica
Industrial Policy Measure: N/A – Not apply
Last Update Date: 15/11/2018
Update Reason: Tender issue

Satcom networks need to cater for new untapped market segments and yet unknown uses cases, in addition to the optimization of the connectivity performance, resiliency, security and cost effectiveness. Recent progress within the satellite communications ecosystem, notably with high-throughput satellite (HTS) systems and mega-constellations, is radically changing the competitive benchmark forsatellite solutions, as compared to their terrestrial counterparts. To offer services to a number of commercial market segments, itis essential to assess the added value of Satcom in the provision of Big Data services using efficient and cost effective architectural and operational solutions. Big Data sources are considered from fixed/mobile IoT sensors interconnected through satellite as well as weather and positioning related data.While the integration of Satcom with terrestrial networks is being addressed by a number of activities in ARTES, these activities do not consider this integration from the perspective of use and delivery of services from Big Data sources. Some information on Big Data platforms trials at national and European level is publicly available. However, there is no Satcom involved in these initiatives.The proposed activity shall analyse the use of distributed virtualised satellite service platforms for the delivery of Big Data Services for market verticals of importance to Satellite, i.e. transportation incl. railway, marine, aeronautical, public safety and media. For each of the verticals, the activity will describe the specific requirements in terms of Big Data, the eco-system structure and provide the stakeholders mapping involved in the Big Data services delivery chain. The activity shall develop integrated Satcom terrestrial connectivity use cases and relevant topologies and architectures based onMultiple Edge access Computing. The activity will leverage from past assessments of SDN/VNF enabled integrated Satcom Terrestrial service platforms. It shall further explore the usability of lightweight virtualisation open source technologies such as swarm dockercontainers, network monitoring tools to set up and effectively run the deployment of communication/computation/storage nodes that big data processing to effectively process and interface with big data applications. The activity will benchmark the adoption of current big data services platform and conduct a qualitative and quantitative assessment of potential Satcom solutions. As well as investigating the use of Satcom in providing Bid Data services to other application areas, the activity shall also identify and investigate the opportunities for exploiting the wealth of data inherently available from the highly distributed Satcom user base. Information on geographic distribution, temporal usage patterns, user mobility, and link performance, can be evaluated to infer broader or underlying trends, as already used in other telecommunication networks. Inward looking uses include improving Quality of Service, reducing customer churn, and capacity reassignment, with additional possibilities to monetise data for external applications, such as localised weather and traffic information. Finally the activity will develop recommendations and propose a detailed strategic action plan to maximise the ARTES Satcom Industry opportunities. The Contractor shall involve the Agency representatives during the interaction, e.g. workshops, to allow the review of intermediate results against the objectives of the agreed targets. The results of this study will be used by the Agency in view of preparation of support technology programs and pre-deployment large scale initiatives.

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