SPACE-QUALIFIED SWITCH
At Radiall, Simplification is our Innovation.
SELECTOR is a consortium of four companies in the space industry: Radiall, Thales Alenia Space (TAS), Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and CSEM. Their objective is to develop a new Miniature Electro-Mechanical Relay (MEMR), a high miniaturization, SMT-compatible, electro-mechanical switch for the space sector.
- The new MEMR will be based off Radiall’s existing Quartz product line, which will be expanded to reach the space market
- TAS will design compact redundancy rings based on SMT
- CSEM will be involved in the characterization and quality assurance
- UPV will bring its simulation expertise to designers
MEMR can be used within reconfigurable microwave space subsystems in line with satellite evolution toward more digital satellites, which allow high-data capacity. Very High Throughput Satellite (VHTS) is the solution to decrease the cost per bit (€/Gbps) of satellite telecommunications. The satellite payload is constituted of a digital core and the digital transparent processor (DTP), which is surrounded by frequency converter units. The number of frequency converter channels in VHTS systems has increased from a few dozens of equipment to several hundred, compared to standard satellite architecture. As a result, in order to remain competitive without compromising reliability, stronger cost and mass constraints are enforced on such equipment.