ESD solutions for Patch Antenna in Space

Hello,

I am designing a Patch antenna with a dielectric radome (Delrin) to be used for TT&C operations in LEO Orbit, can you suggest me a suitable solution/material to cater for ESD without affecting my radiation patterns too much.

Regards,

Edaboard rules say: don't use "Technical abbreviations unless they are universally understood, they will confuse members and make it hard for them to understand what you mean."

B.t.w., I know what low earth orbit is, but what's LEO orbit?

I would expect that a radome already protects the patch from catching ESD.

If you expect charged particles generating a voltage above the dielectric strength of the radome, you should think about a semiconducting coating.

I guess there are standard solutions in space technology.

LEO- Low Earth Orbit, ESD - Electro Static Discharge

Regarding Radome being there for protecting against ESD, as radome needs to be microwave transparent so mostly a dielectric is used and dielectric can accumulate a lot of charge, so from my understanding radome protects the patch from other space hazards but not from ESD. hence my query.

Also if I apply semi conductive coating on top of Radome most of the radiations are reflected back, I have simulated it in CST Microwave studio with a coatings of resistivity values ranging from 10^5 to 10^11 ohm/square with a thickness of 100nm.

I would use siw slot array antenna, it has ground everywhere.

Why are you Using a radome for space application? Dielectric surface must ne avoided, Usually a sunshield accomplishes both thermal and environment protection with very good RF performance.

Yes, why the cover? All of the space antennae I've seen
(pictures of) are naked.

Making the dome extremely thin will minimize bulk charging
and any eventual discharge magnitude. Giving the dome a
better place to zap to, like a grid that's closer to it than
the patch plane is, might be an option.

Also worth checking, is whether there are any non-
conductive or semi-insulating materials which have a
low bulk charging, or tend to recombine charges more
when charge-load gets high. I expect that this info
has been collected by some element of NASA, ESA,
JAXA et al. Where to look, that's on you.

As said before reccomandation is to avoid dielectris surfaces directly esposed (unless full metal parts, all other spacecraft appendages have a common ground to avoid ESD as the gas). Consider sunshield ad an option. In LEO environment you should Also consider atomic oxygen. Consider paints, but they are are lossy or tapes test del flat antenna is a good option.