S P A C E
Payload Phased-Array Antennas
Intersatellite Links | Feeder Links | Communications Payloads
Payload antennas designed with the same rigorous performance and reliability standards as our successful airborne products adapted for space’s harsh environment.
ThinKom’s next-gen phased arrays provide the equivalent gain of larger, legacy parabolic dishes—without all the extra bulk and moving parts.
No deployment mechanisms and lightweight materials equate to less mass, fewer points of failure and the same high reliability as our aero antennas that have over 25 million operating hours to date.
Flexible configurations provide multi-beam operation. Our steerable payload antennas can be used for intersatellite links, as well as for downlinks to multiple locations.
Compact High Performance
VICTS low-profile payload antennas are less than 3″ in height and can be sized to meet gain requirements from S-band to W-band. Built to survive the rigors of space, each antenna is capable of simultaneous transmit and receive (full duplex).
The core VICTS technology employs lightweight platters to steer the beam and control polarization.
Key Features and Advantages
Deployable for a range of communications and scientific applications, ThinKom payload antennas are configurable to customer requirements. Some of the key features and advantages over horn antennas, parabolic dishes and electronically scanned arrays include:
- High spectral efficiency
- Simple kinematics and no deployment mechanisms result in extremely high reliability
- Low sidelobes to prevent adjacent satellite interference
- Wide scan angle coverage (±80°)
- Lightweight (<5 kg for a 30 cm diameter antenna)
- Low power consumption (<20 W peak per antenna)
- Wide instantaneous bandwidth up to 2 GHz
- Polarization diverse with high cross-pol isolation
- Smooth, continuous “jitterless” scanning
- Frequency bands: S through W, dual band and full duplex
- Multi-beam capable (nested group with no blockage)
- Core technology proven in multiple mobility applications
Patented Technology
Our payload phased-array antennas are engineered with the same patented VICTS technology that gives thousands of daily airline passengers fast, reliable Wi-Fi.
Simply put, our VICTS enables extreme performance efficiency in a compact package, delivering higher throughput at lower bandwidth costs than other phased arrays in any form factor.
