News

The ESA station maintenance team of Deep Space Antenna 3 (Malargüe, Argentine) has received support from Callisto for the preventive maintenance of the X-Band cryogenicUltra Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs).

We are very happy to announce a successful FAT for our most recent project with Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie (BKG) to equip one of their antennas at the Wettzell site.

ESA has recently completed the replacement of all X-band cryo LNAs in its Deep Space Antennas with upgraded models. The original cryo LNAs which were all built and delivered by Callisto in the period 2000 to 2009 are being offered for refurbishment and re-sale. The refurbishment activity will be undertaken by Callisto and will include the replacement of the cryogenic components (cold head, compressor and gas lines), renewal of all vacuum seals and completed RF retest. The systems will be supplied with LNA power supplies, data logging unit and monitoring software. The RF circuits include bandpass filters which could be removed for customers requiring extended RF bandwidth e.g. for radio-astronomy or VLBI. Outline technical details of the equipment are provided in the attached data sheet.

Callisto has started a project in collaboration with Sysméca (Colomiers) to develop Ka band LNAs for Satcom applications. This LNA will operate at 20GHz and will be ruggedized for outdoor use.The aim of Callisto is to develop this LNA with competitive performance compared to those currently available on the market and also to provide a European source for this kind of LNA.
This project has been awarded a grant by the “Région Midi-Pyrénées” via the European Union FEDER 2007-2013 Program.

Based on 20 years experience as a leading specialist in cooled electronics for space telecommunications, Callisto is organizing a training course in November 2013 on Systems for Cooled Electronics Applications.
This will be a unique learning opportunity at both theoretical and practical levels for those interested in cooled electronics such as, for instance Low Noise Amplifiers (LNA), High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) and related cryogenic electronic and thermal design, operation and maintenance.

Callisto is pleased to announce that the project GRACY in collaboration with IEMS ( University of Lille) and IMS ( University of Bordeaux ) has been selected by the Agence Nationale de Recherche in a frame program for Nanotechnologies and Nanosytems.

This month Callisto is celebrating its 20th birthday. In 1993 our company was originally founded in the UK by Steve and Béatrice Rawson and we won our first consultancy contract with EUMETSAT.

Callisto is pleased to announce the completion of the design of a new cryogenic test Dewar system for testing of various types of small components including RF, optical, and electronics. This system is cryogen-free (no liquids), operates under vacuum and uses a GM-type refrigerator (cryocooler). It can cool components as low as 25K

The BKG (Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie) staff has received a training from Callisto on operation and maintenance of the Triband X,S,Ka cryo-LNA system recently delivered by Callisto. Four people attended this 2-days training course, mainly electrical and mechanical engineers and managers.

At the end of August 2012, Callisto will welcome nine visitors from China to their offices in the South of France for a 7 day training course in Cryogenic Low Noise Systems