ESA Open Invitation to Tender AO10121
Open Date: 20/10/2020
Closing Date: 01/12/2020 13:00:00

Status: ISSUED
Reference Nr.: 19.1QC.05
Prog. Ref.: Technology Developme
Budget Ref.: E/0901-01 – Technology Developme
Special Prov.: BE+DK+FR+DE+IT+NL+ES+SE+CH+GB+IE+AT+NO+FI+PT+GR+LU+CZ+RO+PL+EE+HU
Tender Type: C
Price Range: 200-500 KEURO
Products: Satellites & Probes / System Engineering Software / Dependability, Safety and Quality tools / Other
Technology Domains: Quality, Dependability and Safety / Product and Quality Assurance / Quality Assurance Processes for Flight and Ground Systems
Establishment: ESTEC
Directorate: Directorate of Tech, Eng. & Quality
Department: Product Assurance and Safety Department
Division: Technical Reliability and Quality Div
Contract Officer: Magne-Lie, Karine
Industrial Policy Measure: C2 – Activities in open competition, significant partecipat…
Last Update Date: 20/10/2020
Update Reason: Tender issue

Conventional bottom-up manufacturing and test methods are associated to a substantial portion of schedule and cost in the life cycle of a space product. Innovative methods that support agile development cycles, such as Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT) that started in non-space space domains are now becoming applicable for space product development and are already studied by many space companies, researchinstitutions and space agencies. The goal is to draft a test flow that enables reliability testing at board level, removing the need to individually test and screen the components, materials and processes. Proposal is to pilot these methods for a space product to reduce development time and cost of space hardware with a proof-of-concept unit. The following benefits are expected:1. Increase the depth of knowledge of failure modes and their effect to the overall reliability of the product2. Pilot the useof rapid prototyping enabling electronics boards usage in space3. Define a technology development tool for HALT testing, creating aservice center for European spaceecosystem4. Proof of concept methodology for an agile reliability engineering methodThis activity encompasses the following tasks:- Identify use cases, for example electronic boards developed or being developed with regular production (cubesat, telecom) of interest for space application- Define tailored test method, plan, required tools and facilities fora HALT implementation (e.g. Thermal mechanical shocks, vacuum, vibration, radiation) In co-operation with Product Assurance experts, highlighting advantages with respect to current validation method- Test a statistically significant amount of electronics boards until failure, using HALT Methods.- Perform failure identification and calculate statistics (ie. Use data to develop failure profiles)- Identify improvement actions to make the board robust to space environment.- Perform a robustness hardening exercise on untested boards to make them withstand the HALT test- Repeat the test with the hardened boards and observe whether the improvement actions were sufficient to make the board robust for space use- Assess time reduction and propose recommendations for adoption of innovative methods that support agile development.Procurement Policy: C(2) = A relevant participation (in terms of quality and quantity) of non-primes (incl. SMEs) is required. For additional information please go to EMITS news „Industrial Policy measures for non-primes, SMEs and RD entities in ESA programmes”.