Bertin delivers the Focal Plane Assembly of the TELEO demonstrator to Airbus Defense and Space

Bertin Technologies delivered to its partner Airbus Defense and Space the Focal Plane Assembly of the TELEO payload on-board the BADR-8 geostationary satellite for ArabSat, one of the world's top satellite operators. TELEO is a new-generation optical communications payload demonstrator which willenable very high capacity analogue optical feeder link communication.

Credit: Airbus

A focal plane allows to establish a bidirectional link between the satellite and the ground station. The emission and reception channels are embedded, separated and aligned across the focal plan.

The beam from the light signal emitted by the satellite is collimated and sent to a ground receiving station. The return beam from the ground station is received and focused in a fiber, before being sent to the satellite' signal processing stages.

In 2020, Bertin Technologies delivered a first breadboard of the Focal Plane Assembly to Airbus Defense and Space to validate most of the concept and to comprehend the alignment method. Following the delivery of this breadboard and within the framework of the TELEO project, Airbus Defense and Space then asked Bertin Technologies to develop and integrate a flight demonstrator of this Focal Plane Assembly. Delivered to the BADR-8 prime contractor a couple of months ago, the Focal Plane Assembly demonstrator has been developed by Bertin Technologies in just one year and is currently being integrated on the satellite. As for today, the first system-level performance measurements are encouraging.

The expertise and reactivity of Bertin Technologies have thus allowed it to position itself as a partner of choice, capable of carrying out such a project in record time.