Space qualified low / high power radar TWTs

A special and very small segment of the TWT market is the application of radar tubes on satellites, e.g. for Earth observation etc. Recently some new development programs for high and for low power tubes have been started, which are the topic of this presentation. The basic idea of these new developments is a modular system, where existing (non-)satellite tubes are combined with the required space qualified components, necessary for the pulsed operation in space. Two practical examples are detailed. For an actual low power Ku-band radar-TWT program, the standard design of a 120 W CW Ku-band satellite tube was chosen and suitably modified. Another program requires a high power X-band radar TWT with a minimum output power around 6 kW from 9 to 10 GHz. This was was adapted from an existing space qualified design. The advantage of this modular system is the possibility of obtaining time and cost effective solutions even for very small programs (with a few tubes only), without unacceptable compromises from a technical point of view.