Military/Aerospace Electronics

Supporting the move from custom hardware to modular hardware in space, Alpha Data has launched an adaptable processors development kit “which comprises a fully radiation tolerant reference design in a deployable VPX format. The core board of the kit will also be available in a deployable spaceflight version”, it said. ADK-VA601 is a system-on-module for (SoM) capable of OBP (on-board ...

Electrocube has created a series of metallised polypropylene film capacitors for high power inverters in military and commercial, land and sea, applications. Voltage ratings of 400, 600 and 1,000V are available, and capacitances from 100nF to 10μF, plus 15 and 20μ in the 400V range “Able to handle high surge currents without degrading, Electrocube’s 985B is a rugged, non-inductively wound ...

UNIO, a German space startup, has announced pre-seed investment totalling €2.5 million to speed the development and market launch of its UNIO ‘bridge’ product. This enterprise-class commercial vehicle system is designed to provide ‘always-on’ connectivity, specifically for connected vehicles transitioning between 5G and satellite connectivity. This is aimed at both the logistics and agricultural sectors, with first products expected to ...

Kuva Space, the Earth observation company, has raised €16.6m in series A funding. It will be used accelerate the development of its patented hyperspectral camera, double its team size, and launch its AI analytics platform. Kuva also says it plans to expand its presence in “key markets” beginning with the United States. The funding round was led by existing investors ...

Mira Aerospace has announced its “ApusDuo” solar aircraft has successfully conducted a 5G connectivity test, delivering comms from a fixed-wing HAPS (high altitude pseudo satellite) autonomous aircraft in the stratosphere. The demonstration (pictured) was conducted in Rwandan airspace and delivered 5G connectivity for approximately 73 minutes in the stratosphere, says the company, during which it reached a maximum altitude of ...

Engineers at the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) are researching new drone technology to help clear mined areas at greater speed and with more safety. A Combination of technologies – both advances in uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) and low size, weight and power (SWaP) sensing – are leading the development of innovative concepts for explosive threat detection, reported ...

The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded Tyvak International a €4.5 million ($4.7 million) contract for a “proximity operations and in-orbit servicing mission” that will deploy a nanosatellite spacecraft from Space Rider. This is the planned European uncrewed robotic laboratory. Tyvak – specifically, the Italian corporate entity of the organisation – will be the prime contractor for the project that ...

Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), the Bavarian rocket company, has announced a partnership with Yuri and ATMOS Space for the launch of ‘Eva’, an end-to-end service for microgravity life science research and product development. ATMOS Space Cargo develops reusable and modular return space capsules designed for scientific payloads, experiments, and equipment, while Yuri develops modular bioreactors and incubators to be used, ...

A new framework to add resilience for Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) satellite information – involving sectors such as emergency services and banking – has been announced by the UK government. It involves the creation of our new National PNT Office, an updated PNT Crisis Plan to be activated if Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) providing PNT were lost, a ...

The European Space Agency (ESA) has been conducting a technology demonstration of a wheeled robot for precise sample collections without human intervention. The reddish terrain is in Stevenage, not yet Mars. The rover is pictured, navigating the terrain of a quarry on its own and retrieving an object. The sample tubes, explains ESA, are a replica of the hermetically sealed ...