12/06/2025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JUNE 2025
Largest focused technical development contract in C-CORE’s 50-year history
Biomass Calibration Transponder (foreground) and calibration disk (background) installed in New Norcia, Australia. Photo credit Al-Abbass Yousef Al-Habashneh, C-CORE Systems Engineer.
In a major win for Canadian innovation, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador-based C-CORE has successfully completed its largest non-program contract in company history, marking a global first in satellite technology. The device – known as a calibration transponder – was installed at the European Space Agency (ESA) New Norcia Deep Space Station in Australia and plays a critical role in helping the Biomass satellite accurately measure the Earth’s forests and their carbon content—vital data for understanding climate change. The first precision transponder to operate at P-Band, it features a world-leading self-calibrating system, which further cements C-CORE’s reputation as a global expert in satellite technology.
On May 24th, the precision calibration transponder designed, built and installed by C-CORE received the first overpass signal from the ESA’s Biomass satellite. This is a significant accomplishment by C-CORE and is the culmination of five and a half years of intensive work by its engineers and scientists. It is also a significant contribution to the Biomass program that has been launched to reduce the uncertainty in the worldwide spatial distribution and dynamics of forest Biomass to improve assessments and projections of the global carbon cycle. The transponder was installed at New Norcia, Australia, under the direction and with the assistance of personnel from Airbus Defence and Space. It is the first precision transponder of its kind to operate at P-Band.
The Earth Explorer Core Missions are an element of ESA’s Earth Observation Envelope program. The Biomass Mission is the Seventh Earth Explorer Mission and addresses one of the most fundamental components in the Earth system: the status and dynamics of tropical forests. Biomass measures the carbon stored in our planet’s forests and its change over time through interferometric & polarimetric P-Band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) observations. The primary scientific objectives of the mission are to determine the distribution of above-ground biomass in forests and to measure annual changes in this stock over the period of the mission. This information will help improve current assessments and future projections of the global carbon cycle. Biomass will be the world’s first space-based synthetic aperture radar operating at 435 MHz. The Biomass mission was funded by ESA member states and implemented by European and Canadian industries under the lead of the prime contractor Airbus Defence and Space based in Stevenage, UK. The satellite lifted off aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on 29 April 2025. C-CORE’s transponder development is also a world’s first and will employ an in-situ self-calibrating feature that will make it the most accurate SAR calibration transponder in the world.
The contract to build the Biomass Calibration Transponder was made possible thanks to Canada’s unique status as the only non-European cooperating state of ESA, funded by the Canadian Space Agency.
“The first Biomass transponder acquisition is a proud moment for our engineering team, who have put in long hours and sacrificed personal time to make this event possible,” said Desmond Power, Vice President of Remote Sensing at C-CORE. “Since the first acquisition, we have officially entered calibration operations with the satellite, which will help to ensure Biomass provides accurate information on the global carbon cycle. Through our experience on similar projects, C-CORE has deservedly earned a reputation as a leading expert in this area, worldwide.”
“As with all firsts, the development of this P-band transponder was a huge technological challenge that C‑CORE mastered with expertise, endurance and an attitude to never give up.” said ESA’s Michael Fehringer, Biomass Mission Program Manager. “Having seen the initial positive results, I am looking forward to seeing the full benefit of the transponder to the Biomass mission. My congratulations to C-CORE as well as to the Prime Contractor Airbus and my own team in ESA.”
The calibration transponder is an instrument that transmits precisely measured signals back to the Biomass satellite. Those signals will allow ESA to determine the health of the satellite and to calibrate the measurements that the instrument generates of the world’s forests. Due to issues of interaction of the Biomass signals with the ionosphere, the transponder was placed near an equatorial region where ionosphere influences, typically encountered in Polar Regions, are minimal.
C-CORE is the prime contractor of the calibration transponder instrument development, providing project management and lead technical development of the transceiver, including the analog front end, digital back end and control system software. A team assembled to build the transponder includes Ingegneria Dei Sistemi S.p.A. (IDS) (Italy), HITEC (Luxembourg), and Arup (Ireland). IDS was responsible for building the 5.5 metre flat panel antenna array and the associated radome (by FDS Italy) that provides protection to the sensitive electronic, HITEC was responsible for supplying the antenna with a fully functioning positioner that enables the system to track the satellite over passes and Arup was responsible for technical guidance on the site installation. This group has extensive combined experience in SAR signals relating to precision transponder design, radio frequency hardware design and construction, digital hardware design, real-time processing, antenna/positioner design and manufacture. The team is also experienced in installing and operating RF transceiver equipment, including precision calibration transponders in remote locations and developing transponders to the level of precision required for this procurement.
-30-
For further information on this project, please contact
DESMOND POWER, M.Eng., P.Eng.
Vice President, Remote Sensing
709-685-3741
des.power@c-core.ca
Media Contact:
Photos follow:
Biomass Calibration Transponder on site support team in New Norcia. From left to right Samual Price and Rick Minter from Airbus Defence and Space (Stevenage UK), Suzy Jackson from CSIRO (Australian operations contractor for ESA), Harald Ernst (ESA), Pedram Ghasemigoudarzi and Al-Abbass Al-Habashneh from C-CORE in St. John’s, NL, Canada.
Picture of transponder computer screen showing radio frequency signals (chirps) received by the transponder from the Biomass satellite.