Design of an Astronomy Front End for Orbiting Low Frequency Antennas for Radio Astronomy

The Orbiting Low Frequency Antennas for Radio Astronomy satellite cluster initiative was started to explore a new area of low-frequency radio astronomy. Due to the partial or complete opaqueness of the atmosphere for frequencies below 30 MHz, this initiative plans to form a swarm of antenna nodes in space. These nodes will also experience less radio frequency interference than they would on Earth. This thesis explores the steps needed to make a viable front end within the tight boundaries of a 3U cubesat. Existing antennas are modeled and examined. This is followed by system calculations to specify the astronomical front-end for an OLFAR node concretely. Once the specifications are known, a wideband amplifier topology is presented and simulated. Finally, the design is proven to be suitable for OLFAR and is ready for realisation. A viable front end is presented and simulated, and it can be concluded that this front end mostly meets the specifications.