ESA Science & Technology - Rear face of Gaia Antenna Support Panel

The Gaia Antenna Support Panel on its ground handling trolley, showing the rear face and electronics modules. Of the boxes arranged in a circle around the rear of the Radiating Cone (centre of panel), the Electronic Power and Interface Controller (EPIC) is positioned at about seven-o-clock. The remaining boxes are the seven 'Quadri-Modules', which provide low-level gain, phase and amplitude control, power amplification and routing of signals to the appropriate sub-arrays. The 2:7-way splitter that allows the spacecraft's nominal or cold-redundant transponder to feed the Quadri-Modules is at the upper right.