High Frequency Reflective Mesh for Small Aperture Antennas

The proposed Phase II program would develop and prototype a high frequency, high performance reflective mesh that is well suited to the emerging small aperture antenna designs. The program will build on the testing knowledge of the Phase I prototyped mesh. 40 OPI gold mesh will be prototyped and integrated to a cubesat Ka-band reflector. Carbon nanotube yarn will also be knitted into a 30 OPI mesh and tested on a similar antenna. The Phase II program will move the mesh to TRL 6. The goal is to make cost effective and robust mesh for the small aperture antenna community. RF test samples and a complete deployable Ka-band antenna will be delivered to NASA JPL for RF testing.

NASA commercial applications include any Ka-Band small aperture antennas used for Earth observing science missions (RainCube radar), deep space communications, and any mission needing high data rate downlinks. The mesh technology can be expanded to larger apertures as well for any high gain mission needs.

There is strong market potential in CubeSat up to smallsat size satellites in the commercial arena. There are numerous communication and data transfer constellations on-orbit and under construction. There are also numerous commercial Earth observation constellations under development. Billions of dollars are being invested in these constellations. Most of these commercial networks are small to nano sized satellites. Many of them would benefit from the lightweight, small packaged volume and high gain antenna performance for either high speed RF communications or weather and ground looking radar. In the terrestrial market, the U.S. Military is actively seeking man-packable high gain antennas for forward operating Warfighters.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 6) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.