TY - GEN
T1 - Inflatable antenna for cubesat
T2 - 2017 IEEE Aerospace Conference, AERO 2017
AU - Babuscia, Alessandra
AU - Sauder, Jonathan
AU - Chandra, Aman
AU - Thangavelautham, Jekan
AU - Feruglio, Lorenzo
AU - Bienert, Nicole
N1 - Funding Information:
Part of this work was performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply its endorsement by the United States Government or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 IEEE.
PY - 2017/6/7
Y1 - 2017/6/7
N2 - Interplanetary1 CubeSats and small satellites have potential to provide means to explore space and to perform science in a more affordable way. As the goals for these spacecraft become more ambitious in space exploration, the communication systems currently implemented will need to be improved to support those missions. One of the bottlenecks is the antennas' size, due to the close relation between antenna gain and dimensions. Hence, a possible solution is to develop inflatable antennas which can be packaged efficiently, occupying a small amount of space, and they can provide, once deployed, large dish dimension and correspondent gain. A prototype of a 1 m inflatable antenna for X-Band has been developed in a joint effort between JPL and ASU. After initial photogrammetry tests and radiation tests, it was discovered that the design was not able to meet the required gain. As a result, a new design, based on a spherical inflatable membrane, is proposed. This new design will allow reaching a more stable inflatable surface, hence improving the electromagnetic performance. This paper will detail the principle challenges in developing this new antenna focusing on: design, EM analysis, fabrication and tests.
AB - Interplanetary1 CubeSats and small satellites have potential to provide means to explore space and to perform science in a more affordable way. As the goals for these spacecraft become more ambitious in space exploration, the communication systems currently implemented will need to be improved to support those missions. One of the bottlenecks is the antennas' size, due to the close relation between antenna gain and dimensions. Hence, a possible solution is to develop inflatable antennas which can be packaged efficiently, occupying a small amount of space, and they can provide, once deployed, large dish dimension and correspondent gain. A prototype of a 1 m inflatable antenna for X-Band has been developed in a joint effort between JPL and ASU. After initial photogrammetry tests and radiation tests, it was discovered that the design was not able to meet the required gain. As a result, a new design, based on a spherical inflatable membrane, is proposed. This new design will allow reaching a more stable inflatable surface, hence improving the electromagnetic performance. This paper will detail the principle challenges in developing this new antenna focusing on: design, EM analysis, fabrication and tests.
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U2 - 10.1109/AERO.2017.7943897
DO - 10.1109/AERO.2017.7943897
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85021215037
T3 - IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings
BT - 2017 IEEE Aerospace Conference
PB - IEEE Computer Society
Y2 - 4 March 2017 through 11 March 2017
ER -