In a public private partnership (PPP) contract, Airbus Defence and Space has received an initial €180 million (US$198 million) contract to develop the first flexible Quantum satellite with Eutelsat and ESA. The spacecraft will have the first reconfigurable communications payload with total coverage, bandwidth, power and frequency flexibility. The Quantum satellite will be operated and commercialised by Eutelsat and Quantum will be the first generation of universal satellites able to serve any region of the world.
Featuring phased array antennas and flexible connectivity, which is fully reconfigurable in orbit, Quantum will be able to adjust its coverage and capacity to suit customers’ needs as and when they change. It features software-defined ‘receive’ and ‘transmit’ coverages in Ku-band and has footprint shaping and steering, including on-board jamming detection and mitigation. Quantum builds on the payload technology developed by Airbus Defence and Space in the UK under the ESA Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems programme (ARTES 33.3) and supported by the UK Space Agency.
Given that the UK is funding most of the Quantum programme, Airbus Defence and Space’s UK operation will lead the project as “prime contractor” and will receive a further construction contract. The Airbus DS subsidiary Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) will build the GMP-TL bus platform for the spacecraft. It will have a launch mass of 3,500kg and a minimum design life of 15 years after its launch in 2018. The spacecraft will use conventional thruster propulsion. The all Ku-band communications payload will use 5kW of power. The spacecraft’s phased array antenna is being provided by Airbus’s Spanish CASA division.
