Simple Ka-band Earth coverage antennas for LEO satellites

Preliminary design of simple antennas to give approximately uniform illumination of the Earth from low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites in the 20/30 GHz band is outlined. Three designs are compared for a satellite with an altitude of 800-km. As the satellite altitude decreases it becomes increasingly difficult to obtain the desired wide beamwidth using horn antennas and some improvement may be obtained using a small reflector.