Large aperture reflectors can have high radio frequency (RF) gain due to its large aperture and can be used to make flexible and appropriate services with recent digital processing technologies. Despite the performance of large aperture reflectors, most commercial geostationary communications satellites use up to 2.5 m aperture reflectors for high speed and fixed beam communication services due to rocket fairing size restrictions. To improve this situation, the recent discussions held by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Japan have concluded that large aperture reflector antennas for Ka-band are one of the key technologies to realize for the next generation of geostationary communications satellites. To this end, JAXA, or Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, started to investigate the realization of 5 m aperture large deployable reflector of Ku/Ka-band for geostationary communication satellites. The reflector is a fan-fold deployable reflector and composed of a fan-fold deployable structure, a thin-plate network, and a metal mesh. The fan-fold deployable structure is designed as a Japanese fan, or “sensu,” and can be stowed in the manner of a folded fan. A rhombus lattice thin-plate network forms the parabolic surface. This chapter discusses the design concept of a fan-fold reflector and its applications.

Chapter Contents:

• 33.1 Introduction
• 33.2 Design concept
• 33.2.1 Fan-fold deployable structure
• 33.2.2 Rhombus lattice thin-plate network
• 33.3 Surface accuracy evaluation of rhombus lattice thin-plate network
• 33.3.1 Number of division and side length
• 33.3.2 Surface accuracy estimation by structural analyses
• 33.4 Applications of fan-fold deployable reflector
• 33.5 Conclusion
• References

Inspec keywords: reflector antennas; aperture antennas; satellite antennas

Other keywords: geostationary communication satellites; JAXA; aperture reflector antennas; beam communication services; digital processing technologies; fan-fold Ka-band large reflector; high radio frequency gain; commercial geostationary communications satellites; Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; fan-fold deployable structure; fan-fold deployable reflector; Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Japan

Subjects: Satellite communication systems; Single antennas