ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO10184
Open Date: 30/10/2020
Closing Date: 28/01/2021 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 20.1TT.04
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: Satellites & Probes / Power / Generation: Solar Photovoltaic / Photovoltaic Assemblies
Technology Domains: Spacecraft Electrical Power / Power Generation Technologies / Photovoltaic Generator Technology
Establishment: ESTEC
Directorate: Directorate Telecom & Integrated Applica
Department: Telecom Technologies,Product&Systems Dep
Division: Technologies and Products Division
Contract Officer: Piesche, Claudia Ria
Industrial Policy Measure: C1 – Activities in open competition limited to the non-Larg…
Last Update Date: 30/10/2020
Update Reason: Tender issue

The objective of the activity is to design, manufacture and test an electronic circuit breaker suitable for all electronic units in a telecom platform. Targeted Improvements: Improving the response time by two orders of magnitude and voltage control byan order of magnitude; Enable simplified power management on the unit side; Enable reset of the power protection. Description: Telecom platforms supply power to all their units via fuses. Because of the physical process of melting a material to open the electrical line, the time needed to actually open the circuit can vary significantly. Moreover, a very high current is needed. Therefore,the whole platform has to be designed to cope with very large current transients. Since every unit is supplied through a fuse, the number of them needed in every platform is quite high. An electronic circuit breaker is an attractive alternative to a fuse for thetelecom market. Its performance would be more predictable and it would operate much faster and with lower current. The current can besensed in an accurate way and the time needed to open the line can be finely controlled by an electronic circuit. Moreover, this circuit can also cope with the overload case where the consumption of a given unit has gone out of its nominal range but still has notproduced a short circuit. Finally, the circuit can be reset by command, which gives a significant increase in flexibility during the integration phase of the satellite. In this activity, an electronic circuit breaker shall be developed, manufactured and tested toverify its capability to replace fuses. Since this electronic circuit should be able to power any unit in a telecom platform, the voltage capability should be above 120V and the current capability should be above 2A. Procurement Policy C1: Activities in open competition limited to non-Large-System Integrators (LSIs)) as prime. LSIs are allowed to participate as sub-contractors. For additional information please go to EMITS news „Industrial Policy measures for non-primes, SMEs and RD entities in ESA programmes”.

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