The Tesat-Spacecom GmbH & Co. KG (TESAT) from

Backnang Backnang (; swg, Bagene) is a town in Germany in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, roughly northeast of Stuttgart. Its population has increased greatly over the past century, from 7,650 in 1900 to 35,761 in 2005. Backnang was ceded to W� ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

is an independently operating subsidiary of Airbus Defence and Space which develops, produces and tests communication payloads for international

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...

manufacturers.

Company

History

In 1949, the AEG (Allgemeine Elektricitäts Gesellschaft AG) business area telecommunications technology was relocated from

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

to Backnang. In 1955, AEG's

microwave radio relay Microwave transmission is the transmission of information by electromagnetic waves with wavelengths in the microwave frequency range of 300MHz to 300GHz(1 m - 1 mm wavelength) of the electromagnetic spectrum. Microwave signals are normally lim ...

division was relocated from

Ulm Ulm () is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Danube on the border with Bavaria. The city, which has an estimated population of more than 126,000 (2018), forms an urban district of its own (german: link=no, ...

to Backnang, and Telefunken GmbH was founded. On March 1, 1967, the AEG Telefunken AG was founded with the aerospace specialty and the focus on development, sales, assembly and testing. In 1982, the company was transformed into a GmbH, AEG Telefunken Nachrichtentechnik GmbH. AEG-Telefunken continued to hold the majority with 51% of the

shareholder A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal own ...

shares, 49% went to a consortium of Robert Bosch GmbH,

Mannesmann Mannesmann was a German industrial conglomerate. It was originally established as a manufacturer of steel pipes in 1890 under the name "Deutsch-Österreichische Mannesmannröhren-Werke AG". (Loosely translated: "German-Austrian Mannesmann pip ...

and Allianz. In 1983, as part of the AEG-Telefunken settlement application, the group's share was withdrawn by the three co-shareholders and divided in the same proportion as the previous shareholder base. The company now operated under the name ANT Nachrichtentechnik GmbH. In 1995, ANT Nachrichtentechnik GmbH was transferred to Bosch Telecom GmbH. In 2000, the Bosch space product division was transferred to an independent company, Bosch SatCom GmbH. 2001 was the founding year of Tesat-Spacecom GmbH & Co.KG. In November 2001, Bosch SatCom GmbH was renamed Tesat-Spacecom GmbH & Co.KG and was acquired by EADS Astrium GmbH in December 2001. TESAT was expanded to produce intelligence payloads for satellites and remained as an independent company. In February 2022 TESAT announced to establish a manufacturing facility in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Milestones

* 1971: TESAT was involved in their first space project with the Intelsat IV. * 1989: Become the main Contractor for

Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom AG (; short form often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a German telecommunications company that is headquartered in Bonn and is the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue. Deutsche Telekom was ...

Kopernikus Satellites. * 2006: Major Supplier for first

Bundeswehr The ''Bundeswehr'' (, meaning literally: ''Federal Defence'') is the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. The ''Bundeswehr'' is divided into a military part (armed forces or ''Streitkräfte'') and a civil part, the military part con ...

Satellite

SAR-Lupe SAR-Lupe is Germany's first reconnaissance satellite system and is used for military purposes. SAR is an abbreviation for synthetic-aperture radar, and "Lupe" is German for magnifying glass. The SAR-Lupe program consists of five identical (770&nb ...

. * 2007: First flight of TESAT‘s Laser Communication Terminal (LCT) on the Near Field Infrared Experiment (NFIRE) (First ISL with TerraSAR-X in 2008). * 2013: TESAT manufactures the 10,000th EPC. * 2018: More than 10.000 established Laser links in space.

Finances

Products

TESAT's product portfolio ranges from individual components to payloads and complete systems. These are supplied by TESAT to satellite manufacturers worldwide. Among the equipment and systems manufactured for satellite telecommunications are high-power amplifiers such as traveling wave tube amplifiers (TWTA) and their power supplies electronic power conditioner (EPC). TESAT's other product segments include channel amplifiers, filters, multiplexers, modulators, transmitters and TTC transponders.