Mechanically scanned, electronically zoomed, receive and transmit antenna for low Earth orbit spaceborne wideband applications in Ku band

Alcatel Space Industries has studied a complete space based telecom system for wideband applications (SKYBRIDGE). This paper presents the antenna that has been studied and developed for this application. A brief justification of the antenna architecture with respect to the requirements is given. The technological developments for both receive and transmit reconfigurable direct radiating array are presented, as well as the obtained results. A high performance, wideband, wide scanning angle, low sidelobes, low C/I, receive/transmit antenna has been successfully designed and developed for applications in a high data rate LEO space based system.