Critical Facilities Serving Space EEE components for EU non-dependence - High and Very High Energy Irradiation Test Facility Market Deployment

Expected Outcome

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Reinforcing EU strategic autonomy by reducing non-EU dependencies on critical space EEE components across their entire supply chain, including radiation testing facilities;
• Providing unrestricted access to critical space EEE components and testing facilities relevant for EU space missions (Galileo, EGNOS, Copernicus, IRIS2 and EU pilot missions on In-Orbit Space Operations and Quantum Gravimetry);
• Developing or regaining capacity to operate independently in space by developing resilient space EEE components and testing facilities supply chains, relying on EU supply chains and/or trustable and reliable supply chains not affected by non-EU export restrictions;
• Enhancing competitiveness by developing products and capabilities reaching equivalent or superior performance level than those from outside the EU and compete at worldwide level.

Scope

Unrestricted access to state-of-art space EEE components and related technologies is a pre-requisite for the EU space industry responding to EU space missions. However, especially for some families of components, the available solutions in EU do not meet the current high-performance space requirements. This is also the case for testing facilities, especially high and very high energy testing facilities which are not available in EU. Currently, alternative irradiation testing facilities located outside EU, are either overbooked or often prioritized under the light on national security limiting their use by EU space stakeholder or severely delaying their access. This represents a challenge in terms of reliable and trustable supply chains for the implementation of EU space missions.

Within the frame of this topic, it is expected to finance and implement a development project aiming at maturing the development of a dedicated irradiation test facility open to EU space stakeholders with focus on testing EEE components for space applications and final goal of lowering the dependency from outside EU. This will be done by moving from small scale prototype irradiation testing demonstrations to a fully-fledged irradiation test facility with sufficient beam time spread across the entire year supporting EU strategic autonomy in the space sector. The selection of the supply chains shall reflect this objective. Therefore, the supply chain shall preferably be built fully based in EU and when this can only be achieved partially, services procured from outside EU shall nevertheless ensure that the overall supply chain will remain trustable, not subject to national prioritization and not affected by non-EU export control. The latest scenario is subject to the approval of the granting authority (i.e. DG-DEFIS and HaDEA).

The focused space development relevant for this topic has been identified based on needs related to strategic institutional space programs, inputs from European stakeholders and the EU Observatory of Critical Technologies: High and Very High Energy (70 MeV/n up to 1GeV/n) Irradiation Test Facility Deployment. Further details will be provided at the latest at the opening of the Call, in a Guidance document published on the Funding & Tenders Portal.

Space is a low volume market affected by a dynamic industrial landscape compared to the terrestrial market therefore, technological spin in and/or bilateral collaborations should be enhanced between European non-space and space industries. Furthermore, proposed activities should be complementary to relevant national or other activities at European level. Complementary activities should be clearly identified, described and the proposal should report how the complementarity is ensured.

To achieve the non-dependence objective, applicants are expected to include a dedicated proposal’s paragraph covering:

• The description of the technology that will be used for providing the irradiation beam and high-level breakdown of the supply chain relevant for the whole test facility. Applicants should demonstrate that the supply chain and final test facility are free of any legal export restrictions or limitations, such as those established in the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) or equivalent instruments applicable in other non-EU jurisdictions. Applicants shall also report, in a dedicated subsection, if and which part of the supply chain is affected by non-EU export controls such as the Export Administration regulation (EAR) i.e. EAR99.

The testing facility shall be open and accessible toward EU and non-EU space stakeholders nevertheless in case the amount of beam time requested will be exceeding the beam time available, the allocation shall be prioritizing EU based stakeholders. Requests coming from non-EU shall be analysed on an ad-hoc basis, considering also the remaining available beam time. This prioritization scheme shall be reflected in the proposal. The test facility as well as related control software and booking platform/website toward the public should clearly report the EU flag.

The proposal is expected to include specific tasks as part of the work plan and related dedicated confidential deliverables to be provided within six months from the start of the project, with the objective of:

1. Analysing and describing, in detail, the full supply chain, each entity and its role in the supply chain, level of criticality and, if relevant, identify dependencies from outside EU;
2. Describing the technical roadmap and a business plan for commercialization (e.g. open access of the facility to the external space stakeholders) and future possible upgrades with accurate understanding of applications needs and relevance for EU space missions.
3. Undertaking a comprehensive literature review of the relevant high and very high energy radiation test facilities at global level reporting the state-of-the-art and highlighting potential gaps between current EU solutions and competition from outside EU.

Unless otherwise agreed with the granting authority, beneficiaries must ensure that none of the entities that participate as subcontractors are established in countries which are not eligible as set out in the call conditions.

The consortium as a whole and individual beneficiaries should ensure that, for a period of up to four years after the end of the project, supply and availability of the hardware, manufacturing, assembly processes developed and/or qualified within the project should be made available to any entity in the EU plus Norway and Iceland, at fair and reasonable market prices and conditions and with no legal restrictions and limitations stemming for example from International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) or equivalent instruments applicable in non-EU jurisdictions. Additionally, beneficiaries that intend to transfer ownership or grant an exclusive licence must formally notify the granting authority before the intended transfer or licensing takes place; the granting authority may, up to four years after the end of the project, object to a transfer of ownership or the exclusive licensing of results.

In this topic, the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not relevant.

Technology Readiness Level - Technology readiness level expected from completed projects

Activities are expected to achieve TRL 8 by the end of the project. The reference TRL definition is the ISO 16290:2013 applicable to the space sector.