Design, fabrication and testing of composite sandwich integral structure of spacecraft antenna

An innovative design of the space offset mirror antenna made of composite material is presented in the paper. The antenna body is designed in the form of a composite sandwich conical shell with a cutout made on the side surface. The body geometry is selected to conform to and accommodate the signal transmitting zone. The antenna reflector is located at the bottom part of the sandwich cone and the feed is placed at the top creating a compact antenna configuration. A full-size prototype of the antenna has been designed, built and tested. Design parameters of the sandwich structure have been determined based on the results of finite-element modal analysis. The experimental results of vibration and thermal cycling testing of the prototype provide a proof of concept and evidence of the design feasibility. It is shown that the stiffness characteristics of the proposed integral sandwich antenna ensure efficient applications of such composite structures in the space antennas designed for various ranges of radio wave transmission.