Design Investigation for a Microstrip Phased Array Antenna for the ORION Satellite

摘要

Students at the Naval Postgraduate School are designing a general purpose mini-satellite that can be launched from a 'Get-Away-Special' cannister located in the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle and will be compatible with expendable launch vehicles as well. This thesis defines preliminary antenna systems and the design parameters for the telemetry system of the ORION mini-satellite. These antenna design parameters may be used for investigations of various proposed antenna systems and the design parameters also allow for trade-off studies with the mission capabilities and subsystems of the satellite. An investigation is made into the feasibility of using conformal microstrip patch array antennas for the telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) systems. It is necessary to have two separate microstrip patch array antennas for the telemetry system: one uplink and one downlink antenna. The microstrip patch array antenna can operate as either an omnidirectional antenna or a directional antenna by changing the phase of the individual patch feeds. This feature gives the microstrip patch array antenna more flexibility for meeting the needs of potential users. Theses. (RH)