An electronically despun array flush-mounted on a cylindrical spacecraft

A conformal array is presented that provides, by means of single-pole multithrow switches and microstrip power dividers, either an omnidirectional or an electronically despun directional radiation pattern. Switching techniques for scanning the directional pattern of circular arrays are discussed. The design parameters and measured results of an experimental 64-element array flush-mounted on a cylindrical spacecraft, are presented. Over the 40-percent bandwidth at
S
band, measured results show close agreement with theory.