Design and Implementation of a Ka-band Folding Rib Mesh Antenna for CubeSats

In the past decade, CubeSats have undergone a revolution, moving from university research projects to enabling industry opportunities and government missions. In 2014, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology (JPL/Caltech) initiated a research and technology development effort to advance CubeSat communication capabilities. One of the critical thrusts was the Ka-band parabolic deployable antenna (KaPDA). This antenna started with the ambitious goal of fitting a 42 dB, 0.5 meters, 35 GHz antenna in a 1.5U canister. At that time, there had been minimal development in high-gain CubeSat antennas, critical for high data rate communications and remote sensing science. A Ka-band high gain antenna would provide 10,000 times increase in data communication rates over an X-band patch antenna and 100 times increase over state-of-the-art S-band parabolic antennas. This paper discusses designing, building, integrating, and operating the flight antenna from a mechanical perspective, its final performance, and lessons learned. KaPDA enabled the RainCube mission, the first Earth Science CubeSat to have an active instrument. RainCube was launched in May 2018, making KaPDA the second deployable parabolic antenna to fly on a CubeSat and the first to operate at Ka-band, enabling follow-on opportunities for high-rate antenna communications and remote sensing science.