Antenna Fabrication Techniques Using Multilayer Insulation Materials for Spaceborne Applications

Spaceborne assets are subject to the harsh environments of outer space requiring the use of Multilayer Insulation (MLI) to provide the electronics inside the asset with a stable environment to operate. These assets are vulnerable in contested space and require some means of monitoring their surroundings. Most electronic payloads exploit the environmental stability underneath the MLI. These internal components would not be able to monitor the space outside of the asset. Sensing capabilities that can survive the harsh environments must be integrated to the asset's exterior. In this work, a Leaky-Wave Antenna (LWA) radar is designed and fabricated using bonded MLI materials. The fabrication techniques utilized involve both technical embroidery and laser ablation to create the antenna structure out of and directly on the skin of the spaceborne platform itself. This allows the radar to be integrated conformally onto the MLI surface, using materials which have already undergone space qualification. While this effort focusses specifically on a particular implementation of a conformal radar antenna, the processes developed here uncover a much broader and generalized potential of applications including communication, sensing, and imaging use cases.