PCDU — Power Conditioning and Distribution Unit
Terma
Terma’s Power Conditioning and Distribution Unit (PCDU) family is a modular, scalable architecture built on plug-in modules mounted on a common backplane, enabling power system scaling from 250 W to over 15 kW without fundamental redesign. The baseline modular medium-power PCDU (used on Rosetta and Mars Express) supports 250 W to 5,000 W on a […]
Key figurescomparable across the catalogue
- Mass
- 0.27 kg
- Power
- 15,000 W
- TRL
- 9
Normalised to common units so this product can be compared with others in its category. The supplier's own wording is below.
As published by the supplier
- Power range
- 250 W to 15 kW+ (modular)
- Bus voltage options
- 28 V, 50 V (regulated); 100 V (BepiColombo); unregulated 22–37 V
- Regulation mode
- Sequential Shunt Switching (S3R) or MPPT
- MPPT efficiency
- >99.7% (modular); up to 98% (BepiColombo modules)
- Transfer efficiency
- >95%
- Output impedance
- <20 mΩ
- Module mass
- ~0.27 kg per plug-in module
- LCL distribution
- 104 high-current LCLs (BepiColombo MTM PCDU)
- Colossus variant
- 800 W avg; 8–56 power rails; 400–8,000 Wh storage; 7.7 kg; 10+ missions
- TRL
- 9 (50+ flight units)
- Flight heritage
- Rosetta, Mars Express, Venus Express, Galileo, BepiColombo, Euclid, Plato, OneWeb, Small GEO
About
Terma’s Power Conditioning and Distribution Unit (PCDU) family is a modular, scalable architecture built on plug-in modules mounted on a common backplane, enabling power system scaling from 250 W to over 15 kW without fundamental redesign. The baseline modular medium-power PCDU (used on Rosetta and Mars Express) supports 250 W to 5,000 W on a 22–37 V unregulated bus or regulated 28/50 V bus, with up to 21 plug-in modules totalling 0.27 kg per module plus backplane. Transfer efficiency exceeds 95% and MPPT performance exceeds 99.7%. The BepiColombo MTM PCDU represents the high-power extreme of the family: a 12–14 kW unit with 100 V main bus, 10 MPPT modules at up to 98% efficiency, 104 high-current LCLs, and a secondary 28 V bus, supporting dual ion propulsion thrusters on the 7-year Mercury cruise. The Colossus PCDU for smaller platforms provides 800 W average power with 8–56 configurable output rails, 400–8,000 Wh energy storage, and 10+ mission heritage in LEO/GEO/lunar. Output impedance is below 20 mΩ and idle consumption below 15 W. Terma has produced over 50 PCDU flight units with heritage on Rosetta (2004), Mars Express, Venus Express, Galileo navigation constellation, BepiColombo, Euclid, Plato, and OneWeb.
Documentation
No public datasheet yet — request the datasheet / ICD from the supplier.