Future Perspectives for the New European Data Relay System

The increasing needs of European observation and telecommunication satellite services, with respect to operations efficiency, require the development of an advanced in-orbit infrastructure for data relay services. The function of a data relay satellite is to forward data between two elements with which it has established a direct communication link. Currently the infrastructure is based on the ESA ARTEMIS satellite that has been operative since 2003 and that will be at end-of-life by the end of 2010. In this frame Thales Alenia Space Italia (TAS-I) and University of Rome "Tor Vergata" (TOR) are conceiving the new European Second Generation Data Relay Satellite System (E2GDRSS) based on state of the art and innovative space technologies and telecommunication techniques. This paper presents the main design options according to preliminary trade-off analysis, which will represent the baseline to the design of the full system.