Recent developments in a large inflatable antenna

The Large Inflatable Antenna (LIA) concept represents a game-changing breakthrough towards realizing high-gain antennas using small spacecraft volumes. It makes use of the simplest and lowest energy structure in nature: the sphere. The LIA technology program is a cooperative effort between the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the University of Arizona (UA). The approach represents a cost-effective opportunity to create a scalable technology for a wide variety of applications for looking into deep space as well as Earth remote sensing. This paper addresses: 1) potential applications, 2) orbital parameters and 3) the spherical reflector design and fabrication.