As high-speed digital signal processing has become a reality taking an increasing place in telecom satellite payloads for today, Thales Alenia Space has introduced the most advanced and disruptive technologies in his new generation of onboard digital transparent processor (DTP). DTP namely Spaceflex is an advanced repeater sub-systems having analogueto-digital (ADC) and digital-to-analogue (DAC) channelizers on their input and output accesses and making extensive use of digital processing to support channel routing with fine bandwidth granularity. The mechanical architecture of such advanced digital processor is based on input/output routing channel modules and switch modules interconnected together thanks to optical interconnect technology already implemented in a breadboard developed under the ESTEC contract Optical Inter-board Interconnects for High Throughput on-Board Processors (OI2) but showing higher performances requested by the application. The optical interconnect is supported by optical transceiver, by optical connectors for inside and outside equipment interconnects, by optical cables and flexes. This optical interconnect solution is scalable to an overall throughput in excess of 15 Terabit/s with 150's of optical links. In the frame of this development, Thales Alenia Space has identified and tested 3 different optical transceivers working at high speed data rate higher than 10 Gbps, compatible with GEO and LEO environment whose reliability is compatible with a lifetime of 15 years. The paper will present in detail the tests on selected transceiver (radiation behaviour and temperature) as well as the overall architecture of such advanced digital on board processing equipment.

Flexibility and in-flight reconfigurability offered by digital processing have become key features in today's telecom satellite payloads. In recent years, Thales Alenia Space have developed several generations of on-board digital transparent processors (DTP) by introducing the most advanced and disruptive technologies. After several payloads based on 5th generation processors, Thales Alenia Space Space Inspire solution uses a 6th generation processors offering another step in flexibility through Digital Beam Forming. The mechanical architecture of such advanced digital processors is based on input/output routing channel modules and switch modules interconnected thanks to optical links. The end-to-end architecture of the optical links was optimized based on the return of experience of the 5th generation of DTP. Increasing processing capacity led to selection of links at datarates above 20 Gbps for the latest DTP generation. The optical interconnect solution is scalable to an overall throughput in excess of 65 Terabit/s with more than 1800's of optical links.In the frame of the development of DTP6G, Thales Alenia Space have led an evaluation process of optical transceivers, compatible with GEO to LEO environments and with a 15-year mission reliability .. Future processor developments are already under preparation with ever increasing processing power and datarates based on the next generations of transceiver which are starting to appear. The paper will present the evaluation process of the transceivers for Thales Alenia Space's latest processor generation, the update in the optical link architecture, as well as a first projection towards the targeted needs for the next generations of optical links.

No abstract