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This paper presents the initial phases of the study of a communication system in Ka band intended for future ESA Deep Space (DS) Science Missions. The paper focuses on the different antenna architectures for the Ka-band system and the initial trade offs between the proposed antenna candidates, addressing the criticalities of the antenna requirements.The study is being currently conducted by Airbus DS Espana (ADSM) with the support of DA Design (Fi) in the frame of an ESA predevelopment project activity to study the TTC active phased array antenna (PAA) subsystem and it is intended to perform antenna studies of the communication system necessary to maintain a complete link between the DS spacecraft and the Earth ground stations.

The design of polarization selective reflectarrays for high resolution and wide swath SAR instrument in Ka-band is presented. The antenna system consists of nine dual-offset reflectarray panels, each with the size of $1.5\mathrm{m} \times0.55\mathrm{m}$. The reflectarrays operate in two modes, a high-resolution mode with a directive beam in one polarization, and a low-resolution mode with a broader beam in the orthogonal polarization. Two designs are presented, a single-layer design and a multilayer design. Both designs provide a gain $\gt 46.7$ dBi for the high-resolution mode and a gain $\gt 45.2$ dBi for the low-resolution mode.

In preparation of potential future Earth observation Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) missions, the European Space Agency (ESA) is conducting instrument preparatory activities. This paper presents the status and results of the instrument pre-developments for an L-band receive-only SAR, which would fly in formation with an active SAR satellite acting as an illuminator. Such formations would enable e.g. single-pass SAR interferometry, tomography as well as observations under large bistatic angles. The paper focuses on the development of the Radar Central Electronics and the Antenna front-end, which were performed in preparation of the SAOCOM-CS mission [1].

The ongoing developments of satellite antenna technology, mainly of multiple-feed-per-beam (MFB) concepts, combined with advanced compound semiconductor and packaging technologies that provide the building blocks for a new generation of K-band satellites, are reported. This paper proposes a next-generation MFB application scenario using the advantages of both new antenna and solid-state power amplifier concepts.

Recent results on active multifeed Ka-band developments for satellite communication are presented. Basically, the active multifeed system is an array-fed, single-offset reflector antenna. The antenna array is fed by an active microstrip beamforming network based on a low temperature cofired ceramics substrate with monolithic microwave integrated circuit based phase and amplitude actuators. In this paper, the benefits of such a technology are shown as well as first project results.