Good morning, all. My name is Frank. I'm working at the satellite communications group of
ESA, the European Space Agency, in the technical centre. And we have a presentation here. It's
not extremely technical. It's only, it would like to explain a few initiatives we are
embarking on. And that is in the area of maybe future amateur satellite payloads which are
hosted on satellites for experiments. It's maybe not so known, but let's say we work quite a lot
in commercial communications, satellite communications with companies in Europe. And we finance and
co-finance various projects. But it should not be forgotten, we think, that many of the innovations
that came to the world of satellite communications are actually coming very often from the amateur
satellite communication world. A lot of work has been done and that has now spined off in commercial
applications. And we gave here a few examples of things that where the satellite communication was
always first. They have been flying the CMOS chips, for example, the first time in the world on their
satellites. They're the ones who made maybe the first inter-satellite links. And there have been also
companies, for example, SSTL, that started with building a few CubeSubs in Surrey University and
slowly became basically a larger satellite company. So that is all heritage from the amateur
satellite world. Also what is quite interesting is that the amateur satellite world flew the first
GPS receiver at very high altitudes, even up to high elliptical orbit. So these are all, I think, quite nice
achievements of the amateur world. At the ISA site, we would like to maybe support initiative that at least
thinks of future amateur satellite payloads on future satellites. And we explain a few things on that.
And that is specifically also related to the payload which is currently on a geostationary
satellite. It's called Q100. Maybe not everybody is familiar with that, but it's a very nice payload which
for the first time is hosted on a geostationary satellite. So it's always above you. You can find
there excellent videos explaining how to handle that satellite and to how to build up with low cost
such communication over those satellites. Let me explain just to get a quick idea. This is the footprint of that
payload which is on a geostationary satellite. So it travels with the same speed at the Earth, so let's say
virtually it's always above you. And this is a very large commercial satellite, hundreds of millions, but on that
there is a small payload with hand-handle amateur communication in S-band and the lower KU band. And the beauty, I think,
of this is also that this is enabled because it is the basically reuse of existing costs. Let's see, existing 2.4
gigahertz amplifiers, the modification of low noise blocks that you use for normal television for, let's say,
maybe 10 and even less zero, and you modify them and then you can use this satellite. So with relatively low cost
you can communicate with the satellite. And this satellite payload, and there is a lot of actually, in particular,
German amateur radio and also UK amateur enthusiasts who have been instrumental in getting, let's say,
community working over this payload on the ASEALSAT 2, which is the name of the commercial satellite.
This was the first time that radio amateur satellites were also able to have a, let's say, more continuous communication
between each other. And you can see here the footprint. Let's take the green and the red line there, that is linked to
how, what kind of elevation you need for the antenna. But this goes from Brazil to Indonesia. So you can have, say,
in a single hop, basically, a user from Brazil could communicate with a user in Indonesia. So there is enormous potential
there too for all kind of experiments. And this has also led to more broadcasting using standards like DVPS2, which is
very active at the moment in Q100, where, let's say, new technologies went into the amateur domain and the amateur
domain is now making very nice open source implementations of mini tuner and all various DVPS2 equipment. That is something
we would like to support. But how do we support that? Now, a longer time ago, these processes do not go that fast,
unfortunately. We wrote a letter to IARU, the International Amateur Radio Union, from where, I think, Sylvain is one of the
bosses, I would say, divided in various regions of the world. We wrote there, or we say, stimulated the letter, say,
an IARU basically asked, Isa, could you not help? We need to think at least maybe of a follow-up of Q100. We asked that,
as you probably know, we are publicly funded, so the various countries want to have their say. Everybody did their
say, say, that's okay. Here, you have some funding. So we have funding to start that process, and that funding is meant to
collect requirements and also make a few prototypes, maybe. Basically, it will not be enough basically to host a
satellite or a payload on a satellite. That will be not possible. We have to look for other funding mechanisms for that later,
but we'll come to that later. So what we will be doing is to identify requirements of all the people in Europe and Canada.
Canada is one of our member states to identify what would be good requirements to fulfill for a next geostationary payload.
And back to the orbit, geostationary or other orbits, we have been heard that some people would be quite interested also to explore
maybe payload in medium-Earth orbit. You can imagine that also then you have a longer contact time, and it still has a bit like a global attractiveness.
We are considering that because there might be various institutional initiatives starting soon where there could be hosting opportunities for small
payloads on medium-Earth orbit. So we will be looking at various further and amateur community that process will start very soon.
We already requested a few inputs, and we still have to process all that, and we will then talk to the various satellite operators to see how we
could accommodate then a payload and how soon to get the funding for that. So the first idea we heard already that is a few people will be
very interested in, let's say, keep it simple. Actually the payload which is currently on as-heel-sub is, it is fantastic that it's there, but functionally you could say it's rather simple.
It's an analog transponder, what you go up in whatever modulation you use, that comes down. And many people like that also because that means a lot of
experience maybe at the modulation level, more deep down RF level. There is also a whole community that comes more from the, yeah, that has been raised with SDRs,
let's say, starting more at that level. There is a whole community that is more working at the, let's say, the IP level and even higher in the amateur world.
And we have to find a bit the balance from maybe simple payload designs to maybe something which is really more complicated. And you can imagine also in the amateur world there are
communities that are going up and up and up in the frequency range. And in the amateur community we have 24 gigahertz, we have up to 77 gigahertz, which we all could use for
satellite. But you could imagine that going higher up in frequency also means that possibly have narrower beams. And for the other hand you would also like maybe that the satellite community is served by,
let's say, more in a larger scale. If we have one very nice spot beam in e-band, let's say in 76, 77 gigahertz, yeah, that will serve probably one country that is not so, I think, inclusive, I would say.
So there's a few balances there to be made. But it would be quite nice in some way to come to a combination that already some people have suggested where we have an analog transponder.
And actually what you would like maybe is to have in geo-arbit the basically the ultimate Linux brick with everything around it. And then everything can do, everybody can do what he wants.
The only also here the disadvantage is again that if we put something like this on board, then we get a certain degree of centralizing things. You need a cis-atmine for this satellite basically.
And that is not always to the likening also of the amateur community. One likes sometimes a certain degree of chaos, let's say, and anarchism and so on. That it should not be too regulated.
So also that is a bit of a balance to be made. But we have various IDs to put it also a bit more in the 5G area where maybe CUDU, certain splits in the whole 5G architectures could be partly put on board.
Because many, many people, even in the amateur world, start to look also at various communications based on 5G, non-NTN, non-trivial network. So very straight-offs to be made.
We listed here a few of those and we will now start a larger consultation on all those topics. Back again to let's pick a few, let's say the attractiveness of future user terminals.
Like the example here, previously of the ground-based SAAG, 6,000 euros, in this case the opportunity of some taxpayers' money. What is acceptable later on for radio amateur? If we go to the 77 GHz, maybe we can use automotive radar hacks and so on.
That needs all to come together. So we would like to request later on in a more structured way input from the amateur community, but also taking into account all these factors.
Because it's no sense proposing something where not a lot of amateurs can benefit from. So that we are currently starting and we will show you a little bit what we will be doing in the next month.
I will not go into detail of the planning, but what we now are going to do, we are talking already a very small group to get a bit of a sense what we should do and also in particular what ESA should not do.
Because some things are far better left to the amateur community. We prepare a bit like a consultation, we talk to the amateur community and we also talk to a number of, let's say, people who would likely build such a payload.
It is however fun that would be, it is not so likely that the amateur community would build such a payload themselves. A geostationary operator with a 300 million satellite would like to know what he hosts as the few kilos extra.
And that is not so likely that he will accept that that is built by amateurs. How good they are also with all respect, he will not accept it and his insurance company will not accept it.
And what we would organize in May is a day in Aztec also with support from our technical people to discuss a few options. Start prototyping, we have the funding for that to prototype a bit what some people call like a flat shot.
So it's the model of the satellite but you basically put it on a table. And we would like actually to have a few IDs ready in September. September there is always a very large satellite conference where all the satellite operators are and we are making there the appointments.
And we will also pitch this to satellite operators as a bit like, let's say as a good thing. Many people complain in the satellite world about the lack of people that understand RF. That is a real lack.
A lot of people, there's a lot of programmatic but there's not so many people that can really understand RF. And also I think satellite operators could take a bit of responsibility to and also the industry maybe to stimulate that the young people start to understand satellite communications.
That is at least also one of our objectives to get more people enthusiastic about satellite communications.
So we hope in May we will advertise that lately. May or June we will see a little bit on availability to organize a day to go through a number of payload designs.
And we're also trying to get some travel reimbursements and so on in place so that people could come to us. And hopefully in September we discuss a few things with satellite operators and even better.
We hope that maybe the outcome of such a discussion could be discussed at a next, force them hopefully next year.
I think that's it from our side. You'll hear more from us. And as said, it's not such a technical talk. It's a process we're starting.
All your technical inputs from the AMSATS, the amateur satellite organizations in the various countries which we are approaching already but also individually would be highly appreciated.
That's it. Thank you very much.
Thank you Frank. I have one or two questions.
Please.
Is there any for phase airing or beef steering or is it way too expensive for such channels?
Yeah, that would be indeed very nice. Of course, if we look at the, let's take first phase array on board.
Yeah, of course that will then be highly dependent on frequency range. Let us assume it would be an event, you know, 77 gigahertz amateur phase array.
Yeah, that would be a fairly expensive thing. But I think we are also there to see where maybe certain developments could spin off further in industrial developments.
So this would be a good, I only see of course again, but also a phase array. It needs a type of management then of that beam.
That comes with that. And of course, it's still a challenge in development, of course, on the ground.
Maybe if we take now the scenario of a medium Earth orbit where you would need pointing, then I can see there that also from the amateur community,
the various YouTube videos that appear with the educational Pluto beam steering and things like that.
There I see a lot of opportunities to do beam forming, to educate people on the essentials of beam farming with maybe an existing beacon that comes from the MEO.
I think that would be excellent to do that. Yeah.
Oh, please.
Supporting Canada.
Sorry, X support what?
Support Canada and obviously those elements in there.
Yeah. Okay. The question was about the geographical thing.
Canada is in. It's also part of our, let's say, ISA member status.
It's called ISA funds, ISA, ISA of Canada funds, ISA.
So we are interested to include the Canadian footprint.
We have already received a bit of input on that, but we have to see because you can imagine that the orbital location of such a due station is not always.
Yeah, we are not the one picking the orbital location.
Therefore, in that respect, a medium Earth orbit hosting would of course be preferential, but again, a trade off.
We are not. Yeah, we can't decide ourselves.
Sorry.
Exactly. Yeah.
We are having in ISA, there are a number of geostationary projects ongoing.
We are, let's say, trying to see whether we could with some leverage, maybe to host something in the future there.
Please.
So one would be if you're talking about payload providers that are not amateur radio.
Are you talking about the universities or only commercial partners?
And then is there like a project in that is not like an ML class, ISA mission also like CubeSats that you would consider for such a like CubeSats, not from the amateur radio site, but let's say I think more commercially from a university where you could also see the situation.
Yeah, on the payload provider, the question is whether the payload provider could maybe also be from university.
Yeah, now I must say we have seen universities providing payloads to various mission, not always to commercial missions.
And that is, I think, where the the satellite operate will always have, let's say, the last word, the last say, because that links them to the insurance and things like that.
So unclear at the moment, I would say.
Then secondly, whether a payload could also be hosted on more educational missions and so on.
I think that that is an option.
The only thing is that I think there's quite a lot of amateur payloads hosted in various Oscars and so there's nothing new on low Earth orbit satellites and CubeSats and so on.
That the essence would be to either to do something new in medium Earth orbit, but also advancing a bit the payload technology and what you can do with it.
And there there is a bit that would be the idea.
Perfect. Perfect.
The proba missions will be also interesting for this kind of applications.
The proba platform itself, indeed.
Yeah, I do not know whether the current proba, one of the, let's say, satellite that is used in these several various scientific missions also, whether some of the orbits are always, let's say, appropriate.
That is, of course, to be seen from a platform point of view.
I need to see no problem.
Why not?
Why not use that?
Yeah.
If there are normal questions.
Thanks again.
Thank you.