TelcoPTS - Generic Telecom Payload Test System

Astrium UK in Portsmouth has a long-term experience in building telecommunication payloads. The current Astrium telecom payload test system (TelcoPTS) is project-specific and therefore requires the re-procurement of the PTS for each payload.

Furthermore, the existing Astrium TelcoPTS lacks a generic and automatic test sequence execution system. Hence, for each payload Astrium has to re-implement the payload test procedures by itself.

This makes the current TelcoPTS solution very expensive and, what is even more important, extremely time critical, as the test system provisioning may even delay the AIT/AIV of the satellite’s payload. This is an unacceptable situation in the time critical commercial Telecom payload business, where late delivery is subjected to high penalty payments!

Moreover, Astrium and other telecom payload manufactures expect new and more business opportunities with respect to more complex telecom payloads. These new complex systems will cause new AIT needs and therefore will pose new challenges for the TelcoPTS.

As a consequence, Astrium plans to refurbish the existing telecom payload test system with a new generic TelcoPTS capable of meeting the new AIT needs for mobile telecom satellite and spot beam payload projects (multi-spot-beam and mobile telecom satellite).

This new generic ASAP 5 TelcoPTS will be the baseline for most of the future telecom payload test systems. Since Astrium manufactures at least 4–5 telecom payloads each year, the contract for the generic Astrium TelcoPTS is of high strategic and long-term commercial importance for Siemens.

Generating of multicarrier signals required for testing mobile payloads on Alphasat and TerreStar is crucial for testing under realistic conditions. Nevertheless, several aspects of such stimulus signals demand specific attention.

In particular the following key requirements on the multi-carrier signal generation drive the process of selecting the right combination of measurement hardware and preparation software:

• The wide required maximum bandwidth
• The maximum number of individual carriers to be simulated (e.g. 75000 for each source for Alphasat)
• The flexibility with respect to the carrier frequency ranges for the mobile and feeder uplink (in L-band and C-Band for Alphasat) The solution for the generic TelecoPTS was implemented together with TU Graz and is in use at the Alphasat RMS Test system delivered to Astrium UK in April 2010.

Coordinator

Siemens Communication, Media and Technology, Space - Hannes Kubr

Siemens Communication, Media and Technology, Space
Hannes Kubr
Siemensstraße 90
A-1210 Vienna
Tel.: +43 (517) 07 - 42696
E-mail: hannes.kubr@siemens.com
Web: www.siemens.at/space