A revolutionary new type of flat antenna is on its way to space, explains Marco Sabbadini, Senior Antenna engineer in ESA’s Antenna and Sub-Millimetre Waves Section. Normally antennas have a curved reflector dish – which works rather like the rounded surrounding of a flashlight to focus its beam towards its target – as well as a radio signal feed horn. The new ‘modulated metasurface’ antenna influences electromagnetic radiation not through the reflector’s curvature but by careful tailoring of the surface itself.

To learn more, read his interview here