SBIR-STTR Award

Small stowed volume, deployable, steerable, momentum and CG compensated antennas for miniature satellites, from 3 kg Cubesats and Nanosats to 10 kg spacecraft provide significant, mission-enabling benefits to military and commercial users. By increasing antenna gain from a typical earth coverage 4 dB to 17dB or more, downlink data rates can be increased more than 20 fold or alternatively, ground antenna gains can be reduced by 13 dB. For example, a tactical imaging satellite with 10 watt transmitter requires a 4 meter command post dish to receive images at 1 mbps. With a 17 dB spacecraft antenna, the ground antenna can be reduced to a man portable 90 cm, enabling the warfighter to receive imagery directly without the necessity to relay data through a command post. Deployable antennas from trainable end fire arrays to dishes are considered. Because the satellites are small, the antenna must be momentum compensated so that steering should not affect spacecraft attitude, this is a technical challenge in a small size. Phase I will explore the types of deployable antennas that are suitable for Cubesats and larger miniature spacecraft, and will build mechanical working models of selected designs as proof of concept.

Benefit:
Deployable, steerable, momentum and center of gravity compensated spacecraft antennas for Nanosatellites would enable Cubesats and other small Nanosats to overcome one of their present, main limitations, that of not being able to transmit from low power spacecraft transmitters to ground users at high bit rates or to transmit to small ground station antennas. Availability of high gain spacecraft antenna gains would make imaging applications of Nanosatellites very practical, whether for commercial or military purposes. This Company developed (on DARPA funding) very small 3-axis attitude control systems for Nanosatellites, already resulting in initiation of a number of Nanosatellite programs that could not have been possible without a 3-axis precise attitude control system. In the same way, we believe that deployable high gain antennas for Nanosatellites will open up another host of new Nanosatellite applications.. This Company was very successful in commercializing the small ADACS by having sold about 18 systems in less than one year. We believe that the deployable spacecraft antenna for Nanosatellites has similar, large commercialization potential.

Keywords:
Cubesat, Nanosat, Deployable, Spacecraft Antennas, Momentum And Cg Compensation