In these days of tight budgets and limited funding, NASA is constantly looking for new ways to reduce development time and costs of future spacecraft. This is the driving spirit behind NASA's increasing interest in the CubeSat platform, and the vision that is guiding development and demonstration of higher-risk technologies that can eventually lead to low-cost atmospheric science from CubeSats. For example, a tantalizing next-generation CubeSat system would combine a high-gain deployable antenna with a high-frequency Ka-band transponder to support very high bandwidth communications on the order of 10s of Mbps and/or very high-resolution radiometric remote sensing of atmospheric phenomenon. To address this need, Tendeg proposes to develop a Ka-band deployable mesh antenna that can package within a 3U CubeSat volume and deploy to diameters of 0.8-1.5m. The antenna employs a backing structure that is a hybrid wrap-rib/perimeter-truss design. A net supports a reflective mesh while the entire assembly provides the structural depth and surface accuracy needed for Ka-band operation.

The primary NASA target application for the proposed deployable antenna technology is future NASA CubeSat and SmallSat spacecraft for which communications up/downlink or passive RF remote sensing measurement resolution is a major bottleneck in the system design. In particular, the proposed technology will enable very high bandwidth communications on the order of 10s of Mbps and/or very high-resolution radiometric remote sensing of atmospheric phenomenon.

Beyond NASA applications, the proposed deployable antenna technology could see use in other military and commercial applications where data up/downlink or passive RF sensing is also a considerable need. Terrestrial-based applications might include portable military and commercial communication networks that desire Ka-band operations and can benefit from lightweight, man-portable and deployable high-gain apertures.