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Plannar antenna for the Nanostar Mission to the Moon

Overview: In the framework of the NANOSTAR project, there is a number of challenges related with the development of a Cubesat capable of carrying out a Flyby mission to the Moon. The project makes available a set of resources and documentation to assist students during the development of the subsystems that compose the NANOSTAR Cubesat.

Goals: Design and fabrication of a lab version of a planar antenna (reflect-array or transmit-array type), foldable for launch). The size would be defined according to the selected communication frequency and Sat size.

Description: Possible missions could be communications between Sat and Earth, or Moon surface radar. A low cost antenna prototype can be fabricated and measured.

IST has all the resources and past experience for the design of this type of antennas, involving Graduation students:

• In-house developed simulation tools for preliminary design of the antennas are available (if strictly necessary, full-wave simulation 3D electromagnetic simulation running in workstations with hardware acceleration);
• Advanced prototyping facilities, capable of manufacturing these type of antennas;
• Anechoic chambers for antenna measurements from 2 GHz up to 110 GHz.

Example of a planar reflect-array antenna for 1U cubesat, 30 GHz, developed at IST/Instituto de Telecomunicações (https://www.it.pt/Laboratories/Index/6)

Supervisor: Carlos Fernandes