In this article, a small aperture coupled SIW cavity-backed dual slot antenna is presented. It is demonstrated that, for a rectangular SIW cavity with dual slot, when the feed point is chosen properly, the structure can resonate at much lower frequency than that of the conventional SIW cavity mode frequency. An equivalent cavity model is formed; a formula for the calculating the operating frequency and a general design guideline are provided for this structure. The designed prototype antenna provides a gain of 8.41 dBi at 15 GHz. For high-gain applications, a 2 × 4 array of such element is demonstrated. An experimental validation of the array results in a gain of 16.01 dBi. The structure is compact, offers a broadside radiation pattern, easy to integrate with metallic surface, and has inherent property of reducing mutual coupling. As a result, it can find application in CubeSat/SmallSats where space is among the major constraints and components are very closely packed. It can be used in CubeSat missions for earth and planetary observations, intersatellite communications, and in MIMO systems for SmallSat swarms.INDEX TERMS Compact antennas, CubeSats, high gain, substrate integrated waveguide (SIW), slot antenna.