Development of modular high power Ku-band Polarisation Devices for telecommunication satellites

摘要

Future generation telecommunication satellites need a payload with many communication channels as well as an increased transmit power per channel. Flexibility due to frequency and polarisation allocation and increased communication capacity are required. This paper presents a summary of the latest developments in modular high power Ku-band Polarisation Devices (PDs) at AIRBUS DS GmbH. It covers two orthogonal dual polarised feed chains. A high-performance linear polarised Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) Tx/Rx PD and a linear polarised FSS/Broadcast Satellite Service (BSS) broadband Tx/Rx polarisation device will be presented. An Engineering Qualification Model (EQM) of both configurations has been designed, manufactured and tested up to a power handling of 4000 watts per polarisation. A very good agreement of the measured performance to the theoretical design is found. The electrical, mechanical and thermal performance as well as first test results of the EQM feed chains will be described in this paper.