Power Electronics for the Space Exploration Hype: APEC 2019

715 views
Download
  • Share

The space business shows a convergence of all factors and signs toward a major disruption. The market is moving towards a much more dynamic environment with new players, strong private investors and new business models, which answer the demand for a hyper connected world and for data-driven economies. These impose in the industry a tremendous pressure for shorter time to market and significant price reduction while increasing the performances of the electronics. On top of that, there is a new hype for space exploration with a clear need for higher power and higher efficiencies to drive the electrical propulsion systems. The answer from Airbus Space Electronics includes the use of new technologies like GaN, the implementation of digital control for smart power management, the use of COTs (Commercial Off the Shelf) EEE components and the digitalization & automation of the development process.

Fernando Gomez-Carpintero is currently the Head of Power Engineering at Airbus Spacecraft Electronics. Before that, he served as Head of Primary power engineering @ Airbus DS Crisa, where he worked as power electronics engineer in the development of power units for space systems. He graduated in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid. He joined Airbus in 2006 as a design engineer for DC/DC converters in the space electronics group. One of his first tasks was the development of the power conditioning unit for European Space Agency (ESA) mission Bepi Colombo, which was recently launched and it is now on its way to Mercury. Since then, he and his team have developed power units for a wide range of space applications, from the challenging ESA missions like Juice (Jupiter’s moons exploration) or Solar Orbiter (Sun exploration), to units for commercial application both in low and geostationary orbits, including units for the new space / mega constellation program, electronics for launchers and power units for space manned missions. He is involved also in the R&D activities of the group, in particular with the use of GaN and digital control in the space application. Since January 2019 he is leading the power electronics engineering team for the Spacecraft Electronics division of Airbus Defence&Space. 

The space business shows a convergence of all factors and signs toward a major disruption. The market is moving towards a much more dynamic environment with new players, strong private investors and new business models, which answer the demand for a hyper connected world and for data-driven economies. These impose in the industry a...

Advertisment

Advertisment