A New Space Switch for Satellite Applications

Based on highly capacitive digital processors and active antennas, new telecom payloads have been proposed by those in the space industry. This new technology leads to important changes for the architecture of microwave units to handle the demands for cost, mass, integration, DC consumption, thermal dissipation and redundancy/connectivity challenges. 

With the new Quartz-S from Radiall, satellite manufacturers are able to secure a robust architecture with redundancy rings, while saving weight, having more compact systems and reducing the final cost of systems.

Radiall’s New Switch for Space 

Based on the Quartz design, the Quartz-S is a unique SMT electro-mechanical relay qualified up to 32 GHz. As a partner in the Selector project (funded by the European commission with three partners), Radiall designed, evaluated and qualified this new SMT relay. 

A new electro-mechanical space qualified switch was developed by Radiall, a market leader in the space industry. This SMT (Surface Mount Technology) switch is perfectly suited for HTS or VHTS satellite payloads with redundant systems. This micro-miniature solution is cost effective, making integration into existing constellation applications easy. As a small, lightweight solution that offers reliability, the Quartz-S is easy to use and fully compatible with automatic soldering processes. 

With reliability up to 100,000 actuations hot switching, this small and lightweight switch weighs just 10 g. Featuring RF performance up to 32 GHz, it covers high KA band applications.

In 2022, Radiall attended the Space Passive Component Days (SPCD), presenting the Quartz-S relay and receiving the award for best paper and presentation for this project.

To learn more about Radiall’s space solutions, including the Quartz-S, schedule a virtual meeting today.