All-Metal Antennas for Lunar Exploration

In support of the accelerating Lunar exploration that is underway through NASA’s Artemis program, the feasibility of an all-metal antenna design and several variants is investigated with consideration for communications and navigation applications in harsh space and Lunar surface environments. The all-metal antenna is of the short backfire type with a waveguide feed and generates a linearly polarized radiation at X-band. The investigation includes the design, fabrication, and characterization of the antenna. The paper summarizes the initial results of the investigation.