ECSS-E-ST&HB-20-20C – A Power Interface Standard & Handbook for Products Development

Abstract

With progression of space experience, the need of more stable and repeatable interfaces definition becomes clear. Especially for satellite platform needs, some electrical interfaces need a more reproducible application frame, to ensure at the same time the necessary and undisputable quality and reliability needed for institutional and non-institutional missions, and the containment of costs that nowadays is overall requested. The prerequisite to be able to establish a wide and agreed basis for the definition of the power electrical interfaces on board of a spacecraft is the existence of a consolidated reference architecture. Such consolidated reference architecture indeed exists for the power subsystem of ESA satellites: due to a number of practical reasons, the concept of using Latching Current Limiters (or LCLs) for the satellite onboard power distribution has consolidated over many decades. This allowed a global European agreement on the relevant interface definition, which culminated in the drafting, reviewing and publication of the ECSS-EST- 20-20C standard (STD) and of the relevant handbook ECSS-E-HB-20-20A (HB).