Anaren has announced that it has received a $7 million contract award from Airbus Defence and Space for an advanced beamforming assembly to be deployed on the Eutelsat Quantum Satellite program, which Airbus Defence and Space is developing for Eutelsat.
The Eutelsat Quantum program will feature the world’s first fully reconfigurable commercial satellite, allowing Eutelsat to adapt the satellite in response to new demands in coverage, bandwidth, power, frequency, and even changes in its orbital position. Anaren will deliver its first flight-set hardware to Airbus Defence and Space in calendar year 2017, with additional system tests and production anticipated over subsequent years.
“Anaren’s experience and demonstrated ability to design and produce high-performance, functionally flexible phased array beamforming assemblies put us in a position to provide Airbus Defence and Space with one of the key technologies they were looking for on the Eutelsat Quantum program,” said Mark Kosalek, Vice President of Business Development for Anaren’s Space and Defence Group. “Given the stated goal of in-orbit adaptability, our solution fully integrates active RF beam-shaping and control functionality into a package which will meet the demanding size, weight and power requirements needed for this new platform.”
Eutelsat Quantum is a first for the commercial satellite industry, featuring software-defined ‘receive’ and ‘transmit’ coverages in the Ku-band; on-board jamming detection and mitigation; and flexible beam-steering, frequency adjustments, and bandwidth reassignment functionality in order to accommodate customers’ needs or market demands.
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