News
Copernicus satellite production terminated
PROTEX INVOLVED IN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE SATELLITE ANTENNA
The European Space Agency ESA signed contracts for the manufacturing of the new ROSE‑L satellite as part of the Copernicus program. Copernicus is one of the largest European space programs and delivers important earth observation data that is used for environmental protection, climate monitoring and the estimation of natural disasters. The new ROSE‑L satellite will join the satellite fleet for radar monitoring in the L band (radio frequency band).
By the growing amount of data occurring in industrial astronautics, a new generation of satellite antenna is developed especially for the new Copernicus satellite. The so-called reflector subsystem consists of one unfoldable arm and one large reflector with a diameter of up to 20 meters. The reflector as “the heart of the antenna“ is a iprotex co-developed knitting fabric consisting of gold coated tungsten steel, with its filaments thinner than a human hair. The knitted fabric offers electrical conductivity and a reflective surface for receiving the electromagnetic waves sent from earth. The complete reflector is foldable and offers crucial advantages regarding the reduction of packing material. The subsidiary HPtex is a cooperation with our partner HPS and was especially founded to guarantee efficient development and research of high-tech textiles and knitted fabrics for this special ambit.
The whole project is seen as a milestone in the history of German and European space aviation and textile industry. The iprotex Group is very proud to be a part of such a futuristic project and once more show it’s innovation power and expertise in textile technologies. The research and development of innovative textiles working under extreme conditions is a promising field that might give us knowledge transfer for many other application areas of textile production.