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The Pacis 3 project works towards providing more affordable, flexible and secure communications services for governmental users in Europe.

It is an ESA Partnership Project with Spanish satellite operator Hisdesat, supported by Spain’s Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI).

Pacis 3 aims to develop and integrate reconfigurable, active antennas for secure communications at frequencies used by governmental users. These are the most challenging active antennas that have ever been developed in Europe so far.

The project also aims to develop and integrate a pallet that has six individually steerable antennas that work at the higher Ka frequency band also for governmental use.

The antennas are being developed by satellite manufacturer Airbus in Spain, which is leading a consortium of six Spanish space companies.

Pacis 3 is part of Hisdesat’s much larger SpainSat Next Generation programme, which comprises two new-generation satellites based on Airbus’ Eurostar Neo product line.

The two satellites will provide secure communications using innovative technologies such as fully reconfigurable active antennas with beam hopping and geolocation capabilities, artificial intelligence, big data and the internet of things.

The satellites – which passed their critical design reviews just two years after the contracts were signed – are due to be launched in 2024 and 2025.

ESA Partnership Projects develop new sustainable end-to-end systems, right up to in-orbit validation.

The Pacis 3 project will also demonstrate in-orbit innovative pooling and sharing services, in support of ESA’s Govsatcom Precursor activities.