Sentinel-1, artistic rendition
...and S-band transponder equipment for the SENTINEL-1 satellite; the first for the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Earth Observation, for the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) program, co-financed by the European Union.
The SENTINEL-1 is a polar orbit satellite which provides images day and night, no matter what the weather conditions, through synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for the users of the GMES service. The first SENTINEL-1 satellite is being constructed by Thales Alenia Space Italy as the prime contractor—the launch is set to take place in 2013. This will be followed by a second satellite, which will be launched two years later. Thales Alenia Space España is supplier of the TxA (Transmission Assembly) for X-band downlink and of the S-band Telemetry, Tracking and Command (TT&C) transponder equipment for the SENTINEL 1, 2, and 3, satellites, series A and B; their activities range from the design specification, development, manufacture, integration, testing and final delivery..
Thales Alenia Space España provides payloads and systems in the fields of telecommunications and optical Earth observation, with ongoing activities in more than 60 space agencies and programs for global companies, which exports over 90 percent of its activity. The Spanish company has the facilities, technologies and space qualification processes needed to produce flight models, including 1650 m² of clean rooms, and contributes to strengthening the Spanish space industry sector and the development of sustainable SMEs tissue , employing more than one third of its sales in purchases in the Spanish industry.
The X-band communication and data handling sub-system (PDHT), specified and designed by Thales Alenia Space Italy, allows the transmission of large volume data (images) from the Observational satellites in LEO (Lower Earth Orbit) to Earth stations, with a rate superior to 600 Mb/s. Similarly, the TT&C Communication equipment on the satellite platform permits the earth stations to control and communicate with the satellite, to find out the exact position, the functional sate, and the operational commands delivered from the satellite.