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These two high gain antennas look very similar superficially, but are not identical. Is this a case of convergent design (a fancy kind of coincidence) or have they evolved from the same source, or were they designed by the same group? Is OSIRIS-REx's high gain antenna nearly the same as TESS'? If so, why?

"Bonus points" for figuring out what ORIRIS-REx's dish is made of. Is this just structural and a metal reflector will be applied later?

(related but different, and no accepted answer yet: Why is TESS' high gain antenna made of undulating BLACK fabric rather than metal?)

OSIRIS-REx's high gain antenna from Spaceflight 101's OSIRIS-REx Instruments:

enter image description here

TESS's high gain antenna from Spaceflight 101's Photos: TESS Spacecraft Assembly & Testing :

enter image description here

uhoh
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They are not designed by the same groups at all. OSIRIS-REx was designed by Lockheed Martin, including the antenna. The diameter is 2.1m, and operates on 8445 MHz.

TESS, on the other hand, has a 0.7 m antenna built by Orbital-ATK (Now Northrup Grumman, but...) The frequency is in the Ka band, which is 26.5- 40 GHz.

Basically they look a lot alike because that is an optimal antenna design. Aside from the color, they look very similar to Voyager's antenna. I'm sure the color has something to do with the different frequencies over which they operate, and material improvements in the last 40 years, but other then that, this type of dish antenna is a pretty standard design.

enter image description here

PearsonArtPhoto
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    Sounds good to me! There may be a better photo of Voyager (original or model) out there somewhere (example) and it turns out Maven looks similar as well: https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/5567/mavens-high-gain-antenna/ Maybe options of materials has improved over the decades, but the general structures are similar. – uhoh Jan 09 '19 at 02:49
  • Oh, same as yours but better angle? https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/voyager-spacecraft-mock-full-scale – uhoh Jan 09 '19 at 02:52
  • This one I mean: https://airandspace.si.edu/webimages/collections/full/A19772728000CP01.JPG – uhoh Jan 09 '19 at 03:20