Feed assembly development for INCUS 1.6 m mesh reflector antenna

Abstract INCUS (INvestigation of Convective UpdraftS) is a NASA Earth Science mission scheduled to launch in 2026. The goal of the mission is to study in detail how water vapor and droplets move inside tropical storms and thunderstorms and understand their effects on weather and climate models. To carry out this study, the mission will use three almost identical SmallSats, each equipped with a Raincube-heritage Ka-band radar. The deployable mesh reflector antenna is a new 1.6 m design provided by Tendeg, which is fed using a seven-horn feed assembly to generate overlapping secondary beams. This paper discusses the approach used to design and fabricate the feed assembly and presents the measured and calculated RF performance parameters.