HPS Space News

March/April 2014

HPS attends to the European Conference on Spacecraft Structures, Materials & Environmental Testing (SSMET) 2014 in Brunswick, Germany. Moreover, serveral publications are subject to oral presentations, i.e.:

• HIGH CONDUCTIVITY CFRP SANDWICH TECHNOLOGIES FOR PLATFORMS
• KUDGR – DUAL GRIDDED CARBON FIBER REINFORCED PLASTIC REFLECTOR
• NON-CONVENTIONAL CARBON NANOTUBE SKELETON REINFORCED COMPOSITES FOR SPACE APPLICATIONS
• SCALABLE – INNOVATIVE SCALABLE LARGE DEPLOYBLE ANTENNA REFLECTOR
• VANESSA – VALIDATION OF NUMERICAL ENGINEERING SIMULATIONS – STANDARDISATION ACTIONS

More information on the congress itself is found by following this link.

Visit our booth at EuCAP!

In addition, HPS attends and presents publications as well as contributes to the exhibition of the 8th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP 2014) in The Hauge, The Netherlands. The publications address the following topics:

• A Q/V-band Antenna for Feeder Link Applications
• An Ultra Rapid Deployable Antenna for on-the-field Satellite Communications
• In-orbit verification of novel reflector antenna technologies – the final step of a European-German development
• RF Design Challenges for a New DGR Concept

More information on the conference itself is found by following this link.

August 2014

HPS has been awarded an ESA contract for the developement of a lightweight radiation proctection system for space applications.

The objective of the activity is to design, manufacture and test novel multi-layered shielding materials for protection of spacecraft electronics or other sensitive hardware. This technology shall offer improved shielding effectiveness compared to an equivalent
shielding mass of aluminium, for several mission scenarios.

Partners of HPS are Kayser-Threde and Fraunhofer Institut INT.

September 2014

The European Space Agency has recently awarded HPS GmbH a GSTP-contract on “Evaluation of lighter and more efficient radiation protection for electronics and sensitive parts”.

At the beginning of this activity a workshop will be performed that represents a forum of bringing together between 15 and 30 experts from European industries and institutes working in the field of radiation
shielding for space applications. Contributions from non-space industries and institutes are highly appreciated as well.

The objectives of the workshop are to survey the state-of-the-art in shielding technology, review lessons learnt from previous projects and identify the future application areas and needs where more efficient shielding would be beneficial (e.g. for cost saving, mass saving, use of non radiation-hard parts etc.). Different types of shielding shall be addressed, including spot-shielding, add-on shielding, as well as shielding using enclosures.

30th & 31st October 2014, Munich
The preliminary programme will be published in due time after evaluation of the RSVPs and presentation contributions. The following overall schedule is planned.

Day 1 – 30th October 2014
On 30th October 2014, 11:30 registration and welcome including snacks. Opening sessions by the host and its partners will take place, starting at 13:00 (allowing for arrival at the same day). After that, the first presentations on radiation shielding shall be held.

Day 2 – 31st October 2014
The second day (October 31) starting at 09:00 is devoted to further presentations on radiation shielding, followed by a discussion board that summarises the key outcomes of the preceding presentations. The end of day 2 is estimated to be in the afternoon.

October 2014

On 11.10.2014 the Chief Executive Officer of HPS GmbH, Germany, Mr. Ernst K. Pfeiffer, met the Portuguese Ambassador of Germany, Mr. Luis de Almeida Sampaio. In the frame of the 50th annual convention of the German-Portuguese Association DPG, Mr. Sampaio and Mr. Pfeiffer exchanged experience made and future visions of space related activities. It was highly acknowledged that the German-Portuguese joint venture, HPS Lda., Porto, the subsidiary of HPS GmbH, Munich, develops very successfully and grows rapidly and that already in 2016 flight hardware made in Portugal will be launched to Mars on board the European mission ExoMars. HPS Portugal is producing here so called Multilayer Insulation for some scientist instruments and in addition for the complete Entry and Descent Module EDM.

November 2014

The European Space Agency has recently awarded HPS GmbH a GSTP-contract on “Evaluation of lighter and more efficient radiation protection for electronics and sensitive parts”. At the beginning of this activity a workshop took place bringing together European industries and institutes working in the field of radiation shielding for space applications.

The objectives of the workshop were to survey the state-of-the-art in shielding technology, review lessons learnt from previous projects and identify the future application areas and needs where more efficient shielding would be beneficial (e.g. for cost saving, mass saving, use of non radiation-hard parts etc.).

About 20 expertes attended and contributed to the workshop that was concluded very sucessfully. On this note, many thanks to the people shown below but also to the organisation assistants.

Attending entities were: Tesat-Spacecom, Max-Planck-Institute, OHB System AG, Fraunhofer INT, HPS GmbH, DLR, Technische Universität München (TUM), Thales Alenia Space Deutschland, Serenum a.s., ESA, STT-System Technik GmbH and HPS.