Australia to develop new satellite RF payload
Australia has issued an RfP seeking vendors who can help develop radio frequency sensor payloads for a constellation of future military satellites.
Australia will fund research into the development of a new radio frequency capability for small satellites.
The Department of Defence released an RfP on 4 February looking to establish an Advanced Radio Frequency Payload Research Network (ARFP-RN) to develop a sensor payload that can be integrated with small satellite bus technology.
Australia wants to establish a constellation of small satellites (up to 200kg) that will operate at medium to fine resolution and with a wide-swath synthetic aperture radar. The constellation will provide a space-based surveillance layer to its broad-area maritime surveillance ISR architecture.
The payload will be first demonstrated in
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