If you want to win contracts to launch small satellite payloads you have to be competitive on price. This means doing everything you can to lower the mass of your launch vehicle while retaining the performance needed to get your payload(s) to the desired orbit. C6 Launch Services has identified a cost saving measure by innovating the design of a radio transceiver along with creating a very small phased array antenna.
In 2019 C6 received a contribution of $72k from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) for a feasibility study called STARS (Space Transmission and Reception System). The study was funded under the CSA’s Space Technology Development Program (STDP) AO 5. In May they announced the successful completion of the study.
Just recently, C6 received a follow-on contribution of $383k from the CSA STDP AO 6 program. With this award the company is going to build a new prototype of STARS with the goal of working towards a technology demonstration (TRL 6).
Recently I spoke with CEO Richard McCammon and Tayo Shonibare, Director of Avionics about STARS.
There are two primary goals in developing STARS.
The first, and most obvious, and as previously mentioned, is to reduce the mass of their radio transceiver and antenna.
In a nutshell, STARS according to C6 will be a “reliable and highly integrated Software-Defined-Radio (SDR) and beamforming antenna design (Phased Array), using a state-of-the-art Radio Frequency (RF) transceiver to provide high throughput multi-band applications on launch vehicles.”
The design, while small, with an early prototype illustrated below, also has the advantage of requiring less power. Less power means a smaller battery is required, which leads to less mass, which leads to the lower cost of the launch vehicle.
The secondary goal is to commercialize the technology. C6 wasn’t willing to discuss those commercial opportunities, but did mention one additional innovation. STARS would allow telemetry from the payload(s) for customers while in flight.
The company has 23 months to complete the work and will be testing a prototype in the lab. There’s no public timetable for when STARS would be commercially available.
More information is available from the feasibility study in a presentation C6 made at the International Astronautical Congress in 2019.
In June, C6 announced it was going to make the Shetland Space Centre its primary launch site. C6 is developing a small satellite launch vehicle capable of delivering up to 30 kg payloads to Sun Synchronous Orbit.