An antenna concept integrated with future solar sails

Inflatable solar sails have been proposed which enable planetary missions employing solar power flux to provide thrust for the spacecraft thus decreasing the required additional propellant. To maximize the capture of solar flux, solar sails are required to have a large surface area (i.e. 100 m in diameter). A question has been raised if one can envision an antenna concept that can be readily integrated into the solar sail itself. Assuming that the inner portion of the sail has an acceptable level of flatness, one may then seek for concepts that provide required antenna gain. Applications of zone plate Fresnel antennas can be envisioned in solar sails. The zone plate (Fresnel) antenna is a type of reflector antenna in which strips of reflecting/nonreflecting materials are arranged on a flat surface to maximize the directivity of the plate. Having a lesser gain compared to parabolic antennas, they may be used in place of parabolic antennas where geometry may dictate a non-parabolic reflector surface. These sails can have a variety of shapes; however we focus on flat sails although most of the analysis can be easily extended to non-flat shapes. Our intention is to propose a comparable and alternative means of antenna design for deep space communication by taking advantage of solar sails´ large surface area and by incorporating zone plate Fresnel antennas on the sail. In addition, for the purpose of developing clear insight into the performance of the antenna and to avoid unnecessary added complexity in the analysis, we propose a 2D MoM and PO analysis of the geometry in order to assess the computational accuracy of PO for the 3D structures.