Comparative analysis of the honeycomb and thin-shell space antenna reflectors

Abstract

Parabolic three-layered reflectors from polymer composite materials with the aluminium honeycomb fillers became widely used in space communication systems in the past decades. There are technological possibilities for creating reflectors in the form of thin-walled ribbed shell with the lower linear density than that of the three-layered structures. The paper presents the results of the temperature and stress-strain analysis for the two types of structures, which could help to select the variant with the best performance characteristics.