High-gain antenna for NASA’s Roman mission clears environmental tests

Engineers at NASA’s Goddard Area Flight Middle in Greenbelt, Maryland, have completed testing the high-gain antenna for the Nancy Grace Roman Area Telescope. When it launches by Could 2027, this NASA observatory will assist unravel the secrets and techniques of darkish power and dark matter, seek for and picture exoplanets, and discover many subjects in infrared astrophysics. Pictured above in a take a look at chamber, the antenna will present the first communication hyperlink between the Roman spacecraft and the bottom. It should downlink the very best information quantity of any NASA astrophysics mission to this point.

The antenna reflector is made from a carbon composite materials that weighs little or no however will nonetheless stand up to the spacecraft’s vast temperature fluctuations. The dish spans 5.6 ft (1.7 meters) in diameter, standing about as tall as a fridge, but solely weighs 24 kilos (10.9 kilograms). Its giant measurement will assist Roman ship radio signals throughout one million miles of intervening space to Earth. At one frequency, the dual-band antenna will obtain instructions and ship again details about the spacecraft’s well being and site. It should use one other frequency to transmit a deluge of information at as much as 500 megabits per second to floor stations in New Mexico, Australia, and Japan. These places are unfold out so the Roman workforce will persistently be capable to talk with the spacecraft.

Producing this antenna was a coordinated effort between the federal government and the commercial sector. NASA was answerable for the radio frequency design and fabrication of the feed assemblies. A industrial companion, Utilized Aerospace Buildings Company (AASC) in Stockton, California, was contracted for the ultimate flight mechanical design and fabrication of the composite reflector and strut meeting. The finished antenna was delivered to NASA in December. Engineers at AASC and Goddard have extensively examined it to substantiate it can function as anticipated within the excessive surroundings of space, the place it can expertise a temperature vary of minus 26 to 284 levels Fahrenheit (minus 32 to 140 levels Celsius). The workforce additionally put the antenna via vibrational testing to verify it can stand up to the spacecraft’s launch. Engineers measured the antenna’s efficiency in a radio-frequency anechoic test chamber, proven within the photograph above. Each floor within the take a look at chamber is roofed in pyramidal foam items that decrease interfering reflections throughout testing. Subsequent, the workforce will connect the antenna to the articulating increase meeting, after which electrically combine it with Roman’s Radio Frequency Communications System.