Preliminary Design of a Lightweight Composite Backing Structure for a Satellite Antenna

Abstract The paper consists of a preliminary design and analysis of a lightweight composite backing structure for a side deployable solid mesh reflector intended for telecom application in the Ka‐Band. As the entire antenna reflector must withstand the forces related to the launching loads, the focus is addressed to the stiffness of the composite backing structure, so that the reflective metallic mesh will not be affected during launching phase, thus with no influence over the possible deformation of the mesh and on its radio frequency performance. It is shown that the proposed concept withstands the imposed launching requirements with a compromise on mass properties.