Thickness-Accommodation in X-Band Origami-based Reflectarray Antenna for Small Satellites Applications

The number of small satellites launches has seen a considerable growth in recent years as their applications increase for both, scientific and commercial missions. The paradigm of large, reliable, and costly satellites is shifting to low-cost, smaller spacecraft missions that present more risks, but they enable quick design evolution by their extensive launch opportunities. Antennas are a key component that limit the functionality of the small satellites in terms of range, coverage, and transmitter power levels. This paper presents a novel origami-based deployable antenna designed to be stowed in a 1U CubeSat volume, and to be deployed in space to form a flat reflector. A reflectarray design comprised of 4096 elements distributed in 96 origami-based foldable panels offering a total deployed area is 0.41 m
²
from a stowed volume of 8.3×10
^-4
m
³
is described. Simulations show that a reflectarray with 29.7 dBi at 7.5 GHz is achievable with the proposed deployable structure and RO4003C substrate. A prototype of the reflectarray is fabricated with a laser milling and fed with a commercially available 10-dBi-horn antenna achieving a measured peak gain of 27.2 dBi at 7.5 GHz. Additive manufacturing techniques are explored to enable in space fabrication of the reflectarray panels, including both the dielectric and conductive layers in space.