Deployable Fresnel Zone Plate Antenna for CubeSats

Earth observation satellite missions are becoming increasingly important and have been also boosted by the appearance of small satellites, affordable to small companies and universities. Technology miniaturization and the reduction in power consumption have been a key point in the reduction of the dimensions of these spacecrafts, being able to integrate powerful payloads in a very limited space. In missions where the observations are made at lower frequency bands, the antenna dimensions limit the achievable angular resolution. For this reason, significant investments are being made to develop antenna deployment systems for small satellites, and the deployable antennas themselves.This work presents the design and prototyping of a deployable Fresnel Zone Plate antenna for CubeSats. The first model is a technical demonstrator, but it is also meant for a GNSS-Radio Occultations payload on a 6U CubeSat. Due to its characteristics and modularity it could be easily redesigned and modified to be used in communications, etc. at other frequency bands.