Novel gravity distortion evaluation on large antenna array for deep space communication

This paper presents a simple gravity evaluation model for large reflector antennas and the experimental example for a case study of one uplink array of 4×35-m antennas at X and Ka band. This model can be used to evaluate the gain reduction as a function of the maximum gravity distortion, and also to specify this at system designer level. The case study consists of one array of 35-m antennas for deep space missions. Main issues due to the gravity effect have been explored with Monte Carlo based simulation analysis.