Alphasat Aldo Paraboni Payload Italian mission segment

In the framework of the ASI Q/V band program, the "Aldo Paraboni" Payload embarked on Alphasat is devoted to the exploitation and the investigation on communications at the Q/V frequency band. The operation of this experimental payload allowed to demonstrate the potential of advanced broadband satellite communications at the Q/V frequency bands and represents an important step toward the development of future High Throughput Satellite (HTS) systems. The Italian Mission Segment (IMS) represents the ground infrastructure which allows to perform communications experiments (propagation impairment mitigation techniques (PIMT)) at 40/50 GHz (Q/V band) and propagation experiments at both 20 GHz (Ka band) and 40 GHz (Q band) by operating the Aldo Paraboni Payload. The IMS was developed under the Italian Space Agency contract and developed by the Italian industry in accordance with the requirements defined for communications and propagation experiments by two principal investigators, appointed by the Italian Space Agency. The IMS consists of two transmitting/receiving ground stations and three control centers, while the space segment is represented by the Aldo Paraboni Payload, financed by Italy through the ARTES-8 Program, developed by the European Space Agency and implemented by Italian space industries. The Aldo Paraboni Payload, also called technology demonstration payload #5 (TDP#5), has been embarked as piggyback on Alphasat satellite, an INMARSAT Commercial Telecommunication Geosynchronous satellite successfully launched on 25 July 2013, which uses the ESA-developed Alphabus Platform and embarks other four technology demonstration payloads (TDPs). This paper presents an overview of the overall system composing the IMS, the functional architecture, main subsystems, and specific features related to the communication and propagation experiments. The ground station validation is also described, together with the description of the system test campaign, performed for functional and performance verification of the IMS. The campaign allowed to test the Q/V band communication functions and to perform the propagation experiment verification, operating the payload in loopback mode and in cross mode.