ISARA – Integrated Solar Array and Reflectarray Mission Overview

The ISARA mission is a technology demonstration of a practical, low cost Ka-band High Gain Antenna (HGA) on a 3U CubeSat that will enable 100 Mbps downlink data with minimal impact on spacecraft mass, volume, cost and power requirements. The key to this technical advance is the integration of a reflectarray HGA into a Pumpkin PMDSAS Turkey Tail solar array. ISARA will fly a nominal 5 month mission that demonstrates the technology on orbit. This paper presents an overview of the ISARA CubeSat mission with emphasis on the unique antenna / solar panel design and a description of the mission design that will verify the antenna performance and validate the data rate capability