EIVE (Exploratory In-Orbit Verification of an E / W Band Satellite Communication Link)

Demonstrate radio link in the E-band at 71 - 76 GHz between a satellite and a ground station.

A radio link in the E-band at 71 - 76 GHz between a satellite and a ground station will be demonstrated. The radio link should reach an RF bandwidth of 5 GHz with a useful bandwidth of 2.5 GHz. The influence of different weather conditions (eg cloud cover, rain, snow) on the radio link should be characterized. Pseudorandom data should be able to be looped continuously at a sample rate of 2.5 GSps using an arbitrary waveform generator. It should be possible to switch between different types of modulation.

Uncompressed video data from a high-resolution camera should be transmitted in real time via the E-band radio link. This is to demonstrate that in addition to known data patterns, real data can be transmitted in high bandwidth. Video data should be compressed and stored in the satellite. Any data stored on the satellite should be transmitted with different modulation types via the E-band radio link. The video camera should also be used for Earth observation purposes.

The E-band payload consists of two proprietary GaN solid state power amplifiers and a GaAs based low noise preamplifier.

• Microcontroller - Xilinx Zynq 7020