Recent Developments on Reflectarray Antennas for NanoSats at Anywaves

This paper reports on the outcome of recent activities at Anywaves aiming at the development of a reflectarray antenna product for space missions using NanoSat platforms. These missions are particularly well suited for this product, which provides high antenna gain while occupying a reasonably small stowed volume. In an effort to industrialize the concept, a generic product definition is retained, which is suitable for both X-band and <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{K}_{\mathrm{a}}$</tex>-band applications. Metallic panel designs are selected to achieve a more stable thermo-mechanical behavior. Two designs, one in X-band and another in <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{K}_{\mathrm{a}}$</tex>-band, are discussed with numerical results for both, as well as experimental data for the one in <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{K}_{\mathrm{a}}$</tex>-band. The results reported confirm the potential of the defined reflectarray antenna product to address the needs of future science and exploration missions using NanoSats.