Manufacturer of radio frequency (RF) antenna SWISSto12 has announced the delivery of a large batch of mission-critical waveguide signal interconnects to Thales Alenia Space for the Eutelsat Konnect VHTS programme.
SWISSto12 has worked on the design, manufacture, and test of these products with Thales Alenia Space over the
last year and is excited to contribute to this next-generation GEO satellite due for launch in 2021.
This delivery constitutes the first large scale use by SWISSto12 with TAS of 3D-printed waveguide solutions for communication satellite payloads. This result demonstrates a successful and ongoing collaboration between Thales Alenia Space and SWISSto12 for wider use of 3D-printing for RF products onboard satellites across a variety of orbits: LEO, MEO, GEO.
SWISSto12 used the design freedom offered by its technology to provide highly integrated and dense waveguide signal interconnect modules that integrate several complex waveguides runs into monolithically 3D printed equipment modules.
These custom-designed products help to improve the waveguide routings, thereby generating a significant benefit in terms of RF performance and system compactness. These corresponding designs would have been very challenging to produce using traditional waveguide manufacturing technologies.
With Very High Throughput Satellite (VHTS) payloads growing in complexity to deliver ever-increasing
amounts of data throughput, this new approach constitutes a future avenue to accommodate larger
quantities of communication equipment onboard satellites.
This programme also confirms the success of a thorough space qualification process for GEO satellite
applications completed by SWISSto12 based on the valued inputs of key customers including Thales
Alenia Space.
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