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Raumfahrt-KMU – Best of Space

Tag: HPS

2020-H2NBA_Acoustic test - 1

HPS antenna for space mission Heinrich Hertz passes meticulous test

By on 18. August 2021in Common, Companies, Politics

With the launch of the Heinrich Hertz satellite in 2023, Germany will once again be flying the black-red-golden flag in satellite telecommunications – twenty years after the DFS Kopernikus mission completed in 2002 – on the innovative “Small Geo” platform from OHB 36,000 kilometers above the earth. On board Heinrich Hertz are some 20 experiments on communications, antenna and satellite technology being conducted by institutes and companies to thoroughly test new satellite communications technologies for their suitability under the extreme conditions of space. Heinrich Hertz is nothing more and nothing less than the decisive step in the German space strategy to regain a foothold in the field of telecommunications with system capability of its own industry – on satellite and equipment level.

Beyond the previous design standard of installing only the receiving, forwarding and transmitting technology on a communications satellite, Heinrich Hertz has onboard processors for direct information processing and, in addition, for flexible readjustment of the satellite itself during operation. In addition to scientific mission objectives, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Economics intend to use additional payload capacities for their own communications. And finally, Heinrich Hertz also serves as a relay station for smaller earth-orbiting satellites with a mass of up to 800 kilograms, extending their contact times to around 40 minutes each, thereby considerably increasing the amount of data transmitted.

All political and technical ambitions of the project depend crucially on the reliability of the invisible umbilical cord of data transmission between heaven and earth, satellite and ground station. With the successful test of the laterally deployable H2NBA antenna – the abbreviation stands for “Heinrich Hertz North Beam Antenna” – from the German antenna specialist HPS, this hurdle has now been overcome: The surface measurement of the reflector with laser radar tested 0.04 mm RMS (average deviation) over the entire reflective surface, the unfolding test in the HPS laboratory with 0-g compensation mechanics went off without a hitch; the antenna also passed vibration tests in all axes at the testing company IABG, Munich, under the extreme load of 25 times the acceleration due to gravity and acoustic tests up to 142.5 dB – this corresponds to the volume of a launching rocket.

The CFRP-based antenna including reflector, feed and tower, hold-down-and-release, deployment and pointing mechanisms from HPS or their subcontractors, is extremely lightweight yet dimensionally stable, offers high natural frequency and is suitable not only for the intended data transmission in the high-frequency Ka-band, but also for the even higher frequency band Q/V-band.

2020-H2NBA_Acoustictest -2

2020-H2NBA_Acoustictest -2

Following final on-time thermo-elastic and RF tests, the antenna will then be joined to the satellite in 2021/22 by the main contractor OHB.

HPS CEO Ernst K. Pfeiffer: “I am pleased and delighted with the results of the tests because even after a quarter of a century in space technology, as a passionate engineer you still break into a sweat during the murderous vibration tests at the latest. My respect to our structural engineers, who calculated all this so perfectly in advance and to all my test leaders who worked really persistent and carefully the last month to have a successful test! We are proud to be part of this groundbreaking mission at such a crucial point as specialists for both rigid and large deployable antennas, which we have been able to become thanks to the continuous support of DLR Space Agency and of ESA. After 20 years company history, with now 71 employees at our Munich locations and Bucharest, we stand for the M in SME at the level of the German as well as European space industry.”

HPS GmbH

Point of Contact: Dr. Ernst Pfeiffer, CEO
E-Mail: info@hps-gmbh.com
Telephone: +49 (89) 4520576-0

KEAN Expedition

Life saver KEAN: Satellite communication “to go“

By on 6. August 2021in Common, Companies

Space specialists close innovation gap for threatening situations

In extreme cases, humans can do without many things for a certain period of time: clothing for months, depending on the weather, food for about three weeks and drinking water for up to three days. There is only one thing he really needs urgently and immediately: the possibility to communicate.

This applies to all life-threatening situations of both a civilian and military nature, to missions on the front line of aid in disaster areas, but also to journalistic reporting from cut-off places, to expeditions in remote regions, to police and intelligence special forces and, of course, also to military missions.

To date, the communications technology market for similar applications has been dominated by products with limited range, vulnerability to jamming and/or unwieldy dimensions and weight that can only be handled by vehicles.

To change this, under the consortium leadership of the Munich-based aerospace specialist for antenna technology HPS (Munich) the following partners have joined forces:

  • The antenna manufacturer MTEX (Wiesbaden, Germany) with a focus on ground stations
  • the start-up Blackwave (Ottobrunn) with the economic series production of complex carbon components
  • the Chair of Carbon Composites (LCC) at the Technical University of Munich for the conception of innovative lightweight reflector blade
  • the University of the German Armed Forces for defining user requirements and conducting antenna field tests.

The aim is to develop a complete system for bidirectional satellite communication on the basis of preliminary developments already carried out by HPS in the context of the program ILKA (“Integrated Deployable Lightweight Manpack Complete Antenna”) is a backpack antenna for communication “to go” (KEAN means deployable compact backpack antenna) with the following specifications:

  • Conformity to satellite operators (e.g. EUTELSAT, INTELSAT).
  • Ku-band, 1.2 m diameter, also X-band capable
  • Including communication system, electronics, battery, tripod, backpack carrying system
  • Total weight under 20 kg
  • Setup in under 15 minutes from backpack transport to satellite link
  • Innovative cybernetic folding mechanism based on the opening and closing of flowers
  • Design and definition of production-ready components and production processes for rapid transition to volume production in larger quantities.

HPS, MTEX and BLACKWAVE are contributing significant in-house funding; the DLR Space Agency, through its Telecommunications Department, is supporting the project with an additional 670.000 euros. From launch in April 2021 to the start of the test phase in fall 2022, only 18 months are planned for the entire development. After the concept definition now in July 2021, the detailed design of the complete system will follow. The main driver of the ambitious schedule is the commercial and institutional expressions of interest already triggered by the initial pre-development of the system, amongst others from the Indo-Pacific region.

 

HPS GmbH

Point of Contact: Dr. Ernst Pfeiffer, CEO
E-Mail: info@hps-gmbh.com
Telephone: +49 (89) 4520576-0

LSS_LEOB_LDR_FunctionalSurface_001-scaled (c) LSS

Automatic unfurling of European Large Deployable Reflector successfully demonstrated

By on 30. June 2021in Common, Companies

ESA, HPS GmbH and LSS GmbH have reached an important milestone in the development of the European Large Deployable Reflector or LDR.

The team has demonstrated the automatic motorised deployment of the engineering model of the eight-metre wide antenna reflector.

The design, build and testing of this full-size engineering model is a significant step forward in the development of the European LDR that will be carried on the Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer (CIMR) mission.

Read more at ESA.