A Review of Advanced Microwave Equipment on the Experimental Satellite Stentor

The explosion of the telecommunication market is also impacting the space segment and the satellite payloads. All over the world, the industry is making strong efforts to reduce cost and delivering time for commercial programs, while decreasing hardware mass and increasing overall performance. Following American and Japanese initiatives, the French agencies (CNES, France Télécom. DGA) have joined their efforts to promote new and competitive technologies by implementing a technological program: STENTOR. This ambitious project aims at flying several advanced concepts which are described here for what concerns the microwave sub-systems.