Stand: M 28                                                                                                                                                                 Saal MARITIM

Over the course of five decades, Tesat-Spacecom has developed in-depth expertise in manufacturing of payload equipment for communication satellites and has established itself as a clear European market leader. On its 60,000m² premises in Backnang, Germany, about 1,100 employees develop, assemble, integrate, and test systems and equipment for telecommunication via satellite. To date, more than 700 space projects have been completed.

Our product offerings encompass highly reliable equipment as for example the travelling wave tube amplifiers, multiplexers, waveguide switches, and modulators, which along with complete systems are delivered globally to all leading satellite manufacturers. Therefore, we offer the complete communication technology necessary, to for example emit television signals over the antenna of a satellite to each household. More than half of all communication satellites in orbit have Tesat equipment on board.

We are convinced that in future global communication will only be viable with the incorporation of space. Therefore, as the first organization in the world, we are developing and delivering equipment for optical broadband communication in space. Using laser, these terminals can transmit data and images between satellites and from satellites to earth. Advantages of laser communication are, for example, the high transfer rate of 5.5 Gbit per second (equivalent to 200,000 pages of information per second) and its stability.

10 YEARS OF LASER COMMUNICATION IN SPACE
In 2008, a government-to-government cooperation between the United States and Germany to establish a laser link between two operational satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) started a new chapter in the history of space. The German radar satellite TerraSAR-X and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency satellite NFIRE, both equipped with Laser Communication Terminals (LCT) manufactured by Tesat-Spacecom, established the first successful and stable orbital laser link.

The anniversary terminal “LCT 135” makes it possible to send up to 1.8 Gbps of data and information over a distance of up to 80,000 km, fast, secure and totally interference-resistant – even when both satellites drift away from each other in different orbits at absolute orbital speeds of around 30,000 kilometres per hour.

Tesat's LCTs are the key technology behind Airbus's SpaceDataHighway that provides near-real-time data transmission to any location worldwide. This system of two geostationary satellites is used to relay data between Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, spacecrafts or airborne platforms and fixed ground stations. Thus Tesat-Spacecom‘s technology enables near-real time data provision in support of time-critical and data-intensive applications such as for emergency response actions following natural disasters. Another exemplary application area is in the support of global maritime surveillance activities as in the upcoming Pléiades Neo Constellation of Airbus, which also will utilise the SpaceDataHighway to ensure highest system reactivity, lowest latency and high volume data transfer.

Building on more than 30 years of experience in developing and improving laser communications technology, experts at Tesat are developing smaller, smarter and more versatile solutions for a variety of new application areas. These include dedicated LCTs for LEO applications, for large satellite constellations, and also for CubeSats – small cube-shaped Earth observation or scientific satellites. Common to all terminals is the approach to reduce size, weight and cost, while maintaining functionality.