HITEC Luxembourg, an engineering and technology company, will be provisioning four antenna systems for a satellite ground station to monitor and control the EDRS satellite network.

According to officials, the 6.8 meter diameter, limited motion antennas are expected to augment the system architecture of the EDRS ground stations which consist of two ‘feeder link’ ground stations (FLGS) and two data ground stations, all operating in Ka-Band.

SES (News - Alert) TechCom, a subcontractor to DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt) is in-charge of the project assigned by Astrium to furnish the ground segment. HITEC Luxembourg will be involved with the design, manufacturing and on-site installation of the antennas at sites in Germany, UK and Belgium.

EDRS constitutes the European network of geostationary satellites serving an as a gateway between Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites and ground stations. This enables LEO satellites to deliver data continuously in broadband quality although not within line-of-sight to the ground station. EDRS further optimizes data acquisition and delivery in the aftermath of disaster. They also enhance environmental protection, security and weather forecasting with new applications.

“The ground infrastructure is an essential part of European Data Relay Satellite System (EDRS). The high quality standard in product and service delivery of SES TechCom ensures that all requirements for such an innovative ground segment are met,” said Gerhard Bethscheider, Managing Director SES TechCom.

The first satellite ground stations will be delivered by 2013 and the last ones are scheduled to be installed by 2014, revealed a statement.

Yves Elsen, managing partner and CEO of HITEC Luxembourg said that the antenna systems can support fast and reliable data transmission. The availability of accurate information in-time is critical especially when used in disaster response and security applications.

“Relying on the experience gained in several successful accomplished European projects with our partner HITEC Luxembourg, we selected the company to supply the four antenna systems,” Bethscheider added.

The EDRS system will be able to deliver data when required in case of communication or in monitoring services where reliability and performance of ground stations is imperative.

EDRS will leverage two geostationary ‘relay’ satellites that will record the communications data of lower-flying earth observation satellites and transmit this data without significant time delays to Earth owing to their fixed position in space. Observation satellites are no longer tied to the short contact times during their flight over the respective earth stations.

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