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

Backnang Backnang (; ) is a town in Germany in the Bundesland (Germany), Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, roughly northeast of Stuttgart. Its population has increased greatly over the past century, from 7,650 in 1900 to 37,957 in 2022. Backnang was ce ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

is an independently operating subsidiary of

Airbus Defence and Space Airbus Defence and Space is a division of Airbus SE. Formed in 2014 in the restructuring of European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS), Airbus SE comprises the former Airbus Military, Astrium, and divisions. Contributing 21% of Airbus reven ...

which develops, produces and tests communication payloads for international

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

manufacturers Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...

Company

History

In 1949, the

AEG The initials AEG are used for or may refer to: Common meanings * AEG (German company) ; AEG) was a German producer of electrical equipment. It was established in 1883 by Emil Rathenau as the ''Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte El ...

(Allgemeine Elektricitäts Gesellschaft AG) business area telecommunications technology was relocated from

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

to Backnang. In 1955, AEG's

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

division was relocated from

Ulm Ulm () is the sixth-largest city of the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with around 129,000 inhabitants, it is Germany's 60th-largest city. Ulm is located on the eastern edges of the Swabian Jura mountain range, on the up ...

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 (; ) is a type of Juridical person, legal entity in German-speaking countries. It is equivalent to a (Sàrl) in the Romandy, French-speaking region of Switzerland and to a (Sagl) in the Ticino, Italian-speaking region of Switzerland. It is a ...

, 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 corporate stock refers to an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the ...

shares, 49% went to a consortium of

Robert Bosch GmbH Robert Bosch GmbH (; ), commonly known as Bosch (styled BOSCH), is a German multinational engineering and technology company headquartered in Gerlingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The company was founded by Robert Bosch in Stuttgart in 188 ...

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" (lit. "German-Austrian Mannesmann pipe-works joint-s ...

and

Allianz Allianz SE ( , ) is a German Multinational corporation, multinational financial services company headquartered in Munich, Germany. Its core businesses are insurance and asset management. Allianz is the world's largest List of largest insurance ...

. 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 (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

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 (, ; often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a partially state-owned German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn and the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue. It was formed in 199 ...

Kopernikus Satellites. * 2006: Major Supplier for first

Bundeswehr The (, ''Federal Defence'') are the armed forces of the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany. The is divided into a military part (armed forces or ''Streitkräfte'') and a civil part, the military part consists of the four armed forces: Germ ...

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 The Near Field Infrared Experiment (NFIRE) was a satellite that was proposed and developed by the Missile Defense Agency, a division of the United States Department of Defense. It was launched atop a Minotaur rocket, from Wallops Island, at 06:48 ...

(NFIRE) (First ISL with

TerraSAR-X TerraSAR-X is an imaging radar Earth observation satellite, a joint venture being carried out under a public-private-partnership between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Astrium, EADS Astrium. The exclusive commercial exploitation rights ar ...

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.