In this paper we present a concept for membrane-integrated antennas for solar sailing missions. Solar sailing imposes challenging requirements on the spacecraft. The small force exerted on the sail by the sunlight results in a proportionally small acceleration of the spacecraft. A higher acceleration allows for more complex missions which is why lightweight subsystem designs are desirable. For deep-space missions, large antenna apertures are necessary to maintain communication and transmit back scientific data. However, large antennas come with the penalty of additional mass and increased stowage volume. This poses a problem, especially for smaller sailcraft. We propose that integrating an array of antennas onto the membrane's surface can significantly reduce the mass of the antenna system. In this paper we present a theoretical concept for an active antenna array on solar sail membranes. We investigate the applicability of classical transmission lines, such as coplanar waveguides(CPW), as well as single-conductor spoof surface plasmon polariton (SSPP) transmission lines. We analyze the line losses of SSPP using full-wave simulations. We use an analytical array model, based on existing microwave circuits and antennas, showing that in X-band, more than 30 dBi gain could be achieved under ideal circumstances with a 256 element array. We evaluate the aperture aereal density of arrays based on a SSPP feed network with different loss parameters. The aperture aereal density rapidly increases with the size of the antenna array. However, we find that the array with 128 elements has an aperture aereal density of only 0.16 kg/m2, We conclude that SSPP are a promising technology for future lightweight antenna arrays.
Structure- Integrated Antennas for Solar Sails
2022-03-05
406814 byte
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
From Solar Sails to Laser Sails
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