Ka-Band GaN-on-SiC MMIC Balanced High Power Amplifier for NASA's Lunar Missions

The feasibility of Ka-band GaN-on-SiC MMIC based balanced high power amplifier (HPA) for science data downlinks from NASA’s Lunar mission assets in space is investigated.

The HPA combines the RF output power from two PAs using a rectangular waveguide based 3-dB hybrid coupler.

The investigation includes characterizing the HPA for the overall RF output power, Gain, PAE, RMS EVM for offset-QPSK, 8PSK, 16APSK, and 32APSK waveforms, Spectrum, 3rd order IMD products, noise figure, phase noise, & group delay.

The HPA has high Pout and good linearity and can support high data rate downlinks from the surface and vicinity of the Moon to Earth.