Multiband RF Receiver Front End for Data Relay Ka-band uplinks and crosslinks

To enable ubiquitous connectivity in lunar and planetary missions, and reliable near-continuous service for distributed science missions, it has become necessary that Relay Orbiters and Communication Hubs in NASA’s space communications network provide high rate uplink and crosslink support for multiple sources such as the Lunar surface assets, Lunar Gateway, Science Orbiters, Earth stations and Distributed Spacecrafts. However, conventional RF receivers are designed to operate over a single uplink frequency band targeting specific link endpoints, while in reality, each of the relay links have different requirements for frequency range, data rates and link margins. The aim of this project is to develop a low SWaP, low noise Ka-band RF receiver front end that can provide wideband operation over multiple programmable frequency bands, resulting in greater usability and cost savings for Data Relay and Intersatellite communications hardware.

Through this project, we seek to design and fabricate a prototype RF board for a Ka-band receiver front end that can enable relay uplink and crosslink reception over the wide frequency range of 22.5 – 27.5GHz with a processing bandwidth of at least 200MHz. The architecture will utilize in-house designed Ka-band RF components for first stage downconversion and space grade gigasample-per-second ADC for direct conversion at IF frequencies resulting in a very configurable efficient solution for the wideband RF front end.

With space reliability and multi-band capability, the proposed receiver can be an integral component of the data relay infrastructure for Lunar communications and Distributed Science Missions. This technology would be a building block towards building the communications backbone for continuous relay of large volumes of science data and the exchange of position and navigation data over space-to-space relay and crosslinks. Through the design and development of in-house RF components, this project would help to advance NASA's Ka-band technology expertise and fill the market gap for a highly configurable, low noise, space-grade, wideband RF front end.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — 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.

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