NASA CubeSats: Pushing the Boundaries of Technology

NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology Program is on the countdown clock to advance communications and proximity maneuvering capabilities for CubeSats with the Integrated Solar Array and Reflectarray Antenna (ISARA) mission.

The spacecraft is a 3U CubeSat carrying a Ka-band payload that includes a low-power transmitter, High Gain Antenna (HGA), standard gain reference antenna, and RF antenna select switch. A Ka-band ground station will verify high data rate by signal-to-noise (SNR) measurement, and measure the antenna performance. The HGA gain will be measured by switching between the HGA and an onboard standard gain antenna (SGA), while the spacecraft will be slewed on orbit to measure the antenna patterns. The on-orbit data will be compared to measurements that were taken prior to launch.