Ground Station Equipment


C-STS provides modem ground station equipment for use in operational ground stations.

In-ground stations, the signals to/from the antenna (dish) go via High Power Amplifiers/Low Noise Amplifiers and Up/Down-conversion before being connected to the ground station Modem.

The modem is responsible for the modulation and demodulation, and the Radiometric processing (Ranging and Doppler measurements). It is also responsible for the handling of the Telecommand data to be sent and Telemetry data that is acquired.

Depending on the ground station equipment configuration, the modem typically includes the TM and TC baseband processing. For the Telemetry, it includes error correction decoding, frame synchronization, time-stamping and can include TM Packet extraction. Likewise, the TC path typically includes the PLOP mode handing. It can also include TC Packet, CLTU processing, and services such as AD/BD TC transmission and TC Authentication.

Modems can be supplied for LEO/MEO TT&C applications, high rate TM acquisition, and Deep Space applications.

Ground Station Equipment - AIT Modem Front angle

TT&C Modem

The TTC-IMBU (Integrated Modem and Baseband Unit) is a Modem (Modulator/Demodulator) proving Telemetry, Tracking and Command (TT&C) services for operational ground stations. The same equipment can also be used during spacecraft AIT during transponder, COMS equipment testing or as part of an RF SCOE.

TT&C Processor

The TT&C Processor (TTCP) is an advanced Telemetry Tracking and Command Processor. Developed for ESA with BAE Systems (UK), C-STS (Netherlands), Zelinda (Ireland), SciSys (Germany) and ATOS (Austria). This TT&C unit has been specifically designed for high-performance Deep Space satellite communications.

Optical Digital Converter

The Optical Digital Converter (ODC) provides reception and processing functionality of digital bitstreams output by free-space optical (FSO) receiver modules, capable of receiving data rates of up to 10Gbps.