AstroMesh Deployable Reflectors for Ku and Ka Band Commercial Satellites

The potential for the AstroMesh deployable mesh reflectors to support Ku- and Ka-band commercial satellite missions is investigated. The focus of the work is on predicting reflector gain/loss for 6-meter aperture point designs operating at 14 GHz and 30 GHz. The use of RMS surface errors from both systematic and random sources for gain/loss estimates via Ruze is shown to be accurate, and grating lobe performance for the systematic components is shown to be acceptable. Mesh reflectivity performance is given and total loss estimates for viable Ku- and Ka-band point designs are presented.