An X-Band Transmitter For Small Satellites

An X-band QPSK transmitter designed for data rates up to 150 Mbps for small satellites with power, mass and size constraints is described in this paper. A direct modulation method where the baseband data directly modulate the X-band carrier is applied to the development of the X-band transmitter. This method can reduce the complexity and size of the hardware. 14 W (41.5 dBm) RF output power of the X-band transmitter at 8.2 GHz center frequency is obtained by a solid state power amplifier (SSPA).