RF Design and Development of a Deployable Membrane Reflectarray Antenna for Space

A new membrane-based deployable reflectarray antenna has been developed for space applications. This lightweight, scalable design can be stowed in very small volumes thereby enabling large, high gain apertures on small satellites. A 4 square meter design has been rigorously tested and characterized (RF and mechanical) on the ground and will be launched on a technology demonstration satellite mission in early 2019. This new reflectarray design has leveraged prior developments of both non-deployable reflect-arrays [1,2] and deployable structures [3]. The paper focuses on the RF design of the reflectarray and briefly addresses future design enhancements that enable greater RF capabilities. The reflectarray mechanical design, related heritage, and some early related RF design/analysis, is also described in [3].