SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Tendeg, LLC
686 South Taylor Avenue, Suite 108
Louisville, CO 80027 - 3000
(303) 929-4466

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Gregg Freebury
gregg@tendeg.com
686 South Taylor Avenue, Suite 108
Louisville, CO 80027 - 3000
(303) 929-4466

CORPORATE/BUSINESS OFFICIAL (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Gregg Freebury
gregg@tendeg.com
686 South Taylor Avenue, Suite 108
Louisville, CO 80027 - 3000
(303) 929-4466

Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 2
End: 3

Technology Available (TAV) Subtopics
Technologies for Active Microwave Remote Sensing is a Technology Available (TAV) subtopic that includes NASA Intellectual Property (IP). Do you plan to use the NASA IP under the award?
No

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
The significance and relevance of the proposed innovation is to design and develop a novel rib that will enable larger aperture parabolic reflectors and antennas. The gain and performance of any reflector is a function of the diameter. Higher communication data rates, longer transmission distances, increased sensor capacity for active radar and radiometers are all directly related to aperture size. The challenge is being able to achieve these larger apertures and still have the packaging efficiency to enable more cost effective small satellites. Tendeg has designed, fabricated and surface tested a 1m aperture Ka-band reflector that is able to package into a 3U cubesat volume. The unique design allows 100:1 area compaction ratios yet the deployed antenna is achieving the surface precision needed for Ka-band operations. Scaling to larger apertures will require a new rib design. Trade studies will consider multiple cross sections, materials and fabrication methods. One configuration is the mini-CTM under development at Langley Research Center. Detailed design will be completed to optimize the integration of each potential rib configuration. Finite element analysis will determine stiffness during deployment and deployed buckling capacity. Testing of a mini-CTM will be done to determine packaging and buckling performance. At the completion of the program a down selected design will be proposed for a Phase II prototype program.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
NASA commercial applications include any Ka-Band 2-4m aperture antennas used for Earth observing science missions (RainCube radar), deep space communications, and any mission needing high data rate downlinks.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
There is strong market potential in CubeSat up to smallsat size satellites in the commercial arena. There are numerous communication and data transfer constellations on-orbit and under construction. There are also numerous commercial Earth observation constellations under development. Billions of dollars are being invested in these constellations. Most of these commercial networks are small to nano sized satellites. Many of them would benefit from the lightweight, small packaged volume and high gain antenna performance for either high speed RF communications or weather and ground looking radar. In the terrestrial market, the U.S. Military is actively seeking man-packable high gain antennas for forward operating Warfighters.