Horn Feed Assembly Modification for INCUS

INCUS (INvestigation of Convective UpdraftS) is an Earth Science project approved by NASA in 2022. The goal of the mission is to study in detail how water vapor and droplets move inside tropical storms and thunderstorms and understand their effects on weather and climate models. To carry out this study, the mission will use three almost identical SmallSats, each one equipped with a Ka-band radar heritage of Raincube. The deployable mesh reflector antenna is a new 1.6 m design provided by Tendeg. This paper presents the general architecture of the three observatories with particular emphasis on the radar antenna subsystem design. In particular, the design and fabrication of the feed assembly will be presented along with measured and calculated RF performance parameters. Modified horn designs based on the measurement observations will also be presented.