Inflatable Tensioned Membrane Waveguide Antenna Array for Space Applications

RF Performance Of Membrane Aperture Shells

“…These driving requirements (compact stowage, larger continuous surface areas, simple deployment) have motivated research into the possible application of thin film based inflatable (in fact some of the first US satellites, Echo I and II were thin film based spherical passive RF reflectors 3 ) and Gossamer Structure 4 technology to provide large RF apertures, especially for space applications. Because of their promise, a wide range of potential thin film based system architectures such as tensioned flats (synthetic aperture arrays 5 , reflect arrays 6 and waveguide 7,8 approaches), singly curved troughs 9,10 , and doubly curved (pressurized 11,12,13 , space rigidized 14,15,16 , or electrostatically controlled 17 ) lenticulars have been investigated by various organizations over the years for their suitability for realizing large RF reflective apertures for various applications (See Lou et al 18 for a concise overview (up to circa 2001) for many of these concepts).…”

Fabrication and electromagnetic characterization of novel self-metallized thin films

“…The auric acid was added as obtained from Aldrich Chemical Co. The Pd[S(CH 3 ) 2 ]Cl 2 was prepared by dissolving palladium chloride (PdCl 2 ) in an excess of dimethyl sulfide S(CH 3 ) 2 and evaporating the product to dryness. The product was then recrystallized from ethanol and dried under vacuum at 60 °C for 2 to 3 hours.…”

“…Inflatable antennas can be stowed in a variety of configurations, are lighter than mesh antennas, and retain their shapes better than mesh once inflated. The inflatable reflector concept was demonstrated by the Inflatable Antenna Experiment (IAE) in 1996 [1]; other configurations for large space antennas using metallized membrane materials have been investigated by Bailey and Campbell [2]. This paper describes work funded by the Gossamer program, in which novel, metallized polymers were synthesized and tested for their reflective and emissive properties at L-band.…”