Satellites

Tender description

Provision of space radiation measurement services in-orbit (ideally high-LEO) through the procurement of a ‘Trusted’ (high TRL radiation instrument, ideally with flight heritage) calibrated on-ground and integrated in/on to a host spacecraft to measure external radiation characteristics once on orbit. Procured as at least one host-instrument pair to be launched (mid 2022) and accepted in-orbit, with option for a 2nd pair. Subsequent operations services (until March 2023) for the instrument to provide regular (at least daily) deliveries of radiation measurement instrument data to RAL Space and manage commands to the instrument (including code-uploads) and various calibration tasks. Options to extend operations while instruments and host spacecraft are operating satisfactorily. Space radiation measurement instrument should distinguish and measure: protons flux, electron flux and surface charging at a cadence of minutes. As a Trusted instrument, command generation and processing software (to create calibrated values) shall be requested for installation at a RAL Space managed Instrument Management Facility (IMF) – the IMF will not be part of this procurement.