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

Engineers at NASA’s Goddard House Flight Heart in Greenbelt, Maryland, have completed testing the high-gain antenna for the Nancy Grace Roman House Telescope. When it launches by Might 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 check chamber, the antenna will present the first communication hyperlink between the Roman spacecraft and the bottom. It can downlink the very best information quantity of any NASA astrophysics mission to this point.

The antenna reflector is fabricated from a carbon composite materials that weighs little or no however will nonetheless stand up to the spacecraft’s broad temperature fluctuations. The dish spans 5.6 toes (1.7 meters) in diameter, standing about as tall as a fridge, but solely weighs 24 kilos (10.9 kilograms). Its giant dimension will assist Roman ship radio signals throughout 1,000,000 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 placement. It can 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 group will constantly be capable to talk with the spacecraft.

Producing this antenna was a coordinated effort between the federal government and the commercial sector. NASA was liable for the radio frequency design and fabrication of the feed assemblies. A business accomplice, Utilized Aerospace Constructions 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 verify it is going to function as anticipated within the excessive setting of space, the place it is going to expertise a temperature vary of minus 26 to 284 levels Fahrenheit (minus 32 to 140 levels Celsius). The group additionally put the antenna via vibrational testing to verify it is going to stand up to the spacecraft’s launch. Engineers measured the antenna’s efficiency in a radio-frequency anechoic test chamber, proven within the picture above. Each floor within the check chamber is roofed in pyramidal foam items that decrease interfering reflections throughout testing. Subsequent, the group will connect the antenna to the articulating growth meeting, after which electrically combine it with Roman’s Radio Frequency Communications System.