Industrial Readiness for Affordable Ka-band User Terminals

Expected Impact:

Projects funded under this call are expected to deliver tangible industrial outputs that demonstrably advance the readiness and affordability of future governmental Ka-band user terminals for IRIS2 and GOVSATCOM services. Expected outputs include, for example: qualified production processes, calibrated sub-assemblies, pilot-run units, validated manufacturing equipment chains or manufacturing cost models.

Purely analytical deliverables (studies, design reports) are not sufficient as primary outputs but may complement the above.

Where relevant, outputs shall include documented design assumptions, interface parameters or process specifications enabling adaptation to different terminal configurations with limited re-engineering, so as to support uptake in follow-on integration, pilot deployment and scale-up activities.

Objective:

The aim of this call for proposals is to advance the industrial readiness of European Ka-band user terminal technologies, subsystems and manufacturing processes, with a view to enabling cost-effective production of user terminals for services provided under the Union secure connectivity programme (IRIS²) and GOVSATCOM.

The target reference for this call is the Ka-band user terminal segment of IRIS², operating with non-geostationary satellite constellations in low Earth orbit (LEO) and medium Earth orbit (MEO). Proposed activities shall be relevant across the full Ka-band frequency range, covering both commercial Ka-band (17.7-20.2 GHz downlink, 27.5-30.0 GHz uplink) and military Ka-band (20.2-21.2 GHz downlink, 30.0-31.0 GHz uplink). Proposals should leverage commonality between governmental and commercial terminal variants to maximise production volumes and cost reduction.

Scope:

Submitted proposals shall address a coherent approach to improving the affordability, manufacturability and production readiness of future Ka-band user terminals, with a focus on technologies and subsystems that are sufficiently mature to support near-term industrialisation (at least TRL5 or above at the start of the action) and consistent with production scenarios on the order of 1000 units per month at scale, on a multi-year horizon. All proposed activities must demonstrate a clear and credible link to the cost, manufacturability or deployment readiness of a complete Ka-band user terminal aligned with 5G NR NTN terminal development paths, including where relevant phased array or other advanced antenna subsystem technologies.

These actions shall address one or more of the following:

• Antenna-subsystem industrial readiness, including assembly, calibration and test processes, as the antenna subsystem represents the dominant cost driver in Ka-band terminal production
• Manufacturing processes and equipment enabling improved throughput, repeatability and unit-cost reduction
• Supply-chain measures reducing critical dependencies on non-European sources and strengthening European industrial capability for terminal components
• Modem and baseband industrial readiness for 5G NR NTN compliant solutions, including industrialisation of baseband processing subsystems and migration paths towards volume-production architectures