European Spatial Agency (ESA)

These services available today can be divided in two main activities.

1. Related to signal transmission :

• to receive GALILEO signals (through GIOVE-A),
• to send/receive test signals to GEO satellites in various frequency ranges (S-, Ka-, Ku-, C- and L- band),
• to host in Redu station emission/reception stations for communication with any kind of satellite.

2. Related to testing equipment :

• signal generator (up to 20 GHz),
• function generators,
• spectrum analyzers (up to 40 GHz),
• power meters, frequency counters,
• universal counters,
• network analyzer,
• noise figure meter, noise sources,
• oscilloscope,
• voltmeter,
• multimeters,
• modulation analyzer.

These services are offered by ESA through Redu Space Services, the company taking care of the operations of the ground station since 2007. Redu Space Services is a joint venture between SES ASTRA TechCom and Verhaert Space.

Due to its testing expertise, the ESA ground station in Redu is selected to perform the IOT (In Orbit Testing) phase for the whole GALILEO program (i.e. 34 satellites).

Thanks to the new activities planned on Redu site this ground station is now called " ESA ground control center ". As an example a new 22-meter diameter antenna has been built by ESA and 13 additional SES ASTRA antennas are about to equip the site.

More information on www.esa.int