Highly integrated X-Band SSPA

January 2020 – ongoing

In the currently ongoing project for European Space Agency, SpaceForest designs a low cost highly integrated solid-state power amplifier for X-Band.

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X-Band is the typical frequency band used for downlink transmitters in earth observation missions. The X-Band SSPA will meet stringent requirements, such as high and very stable output power level in wide temperature range, very high power-added efficiency (PAE), etc., while surviving seven years on a low earth orbit (LEO), filling the market niche of “new space” solutions for modern satellites. These assumptions allow to significantly decrease the price of X-Band SSPA and improve its competitiveness.

In December 2019 the first project of the X-Band SSPA finished with the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5. The lifetime of the continuation project should be two years, leading to the development of a full Engineering Qualified Model (EQM) at TRL 7. The main partner in the project is TESAT SPACECOM GMBH from Backnang/Germany.

The target application will be downstream transmitters such as earth observation satellite constellations.