One-Meter Deployable Mesh Reflector for Deep-Space Network Telecommunication at ${X}$ -Band and $Ka$ -Band

This article presents the design and optimization of a deployable 1 m mesh reflector compatible with a 12U-class CubeSat. This antenna is designed for telecommunication and is compatible with NASA’s deep-space network (DSN) at ${X}$ -band (i.e., uplink: 7.145–7.19 GHz; downlink: 8.4–8.45 GHz) and Ka -band frequencies (i.e., uplink: 34.2–34.7 GHz; downlink: 31.8–32.3 GHz). Three right-handed circularly polarized (RHCP) antennas, both transmit and receive, are introduced here: ${X}$ -band only, Ka -band only, and ${X}$ -/ Ka -band. For the ${X}$ -band-only antenna, a gain of 36.1 and 36.8 dBic is achieved at uplink and downlink frequency bands, respectively. This translates into an aperture efficiency of 72% and 62%. For the Ka -band-only antenna, a gain of 48.4 and 48.7 dBic is obtained at downlink and uplink frequency bands, which translate into an aperture efficiency of 62% and 72%, respectively.