The technology platform of the EIVE CubeSat mission for high throughput downlinks at W-band

This paper details the motivation and the status of a new satellite mission, which targets the in-orbit verification of a wide band satellite communication link, operating in the high millimeter-wave regime at 71–76 GHz. Under ideal weather conditions, data rates over 15 Gb/s in complex modulation formats are expected to be demonstrated in-orbit, while data rates over 6 Gb/s are still expected under adverse atmospheric and weather conditions. The scientific payload, hosted by a 6U-CubeSat platform, comprises a high-performance W-band transmitter with GaN-based solid state power amplifiers, an InGaAs-based low-noise receiver and a modern FPGA-based digital processing unit, realizing arbitrary waveform generation functionality and 4k image/video storage. The ground terminal employs a highly directive Cassegrain antenna with coarse GNSS and fine multi-mode RF tracking and a low-noise receiver together with an integrated high-speed digital processing and storage unit.