Other
Scientific paper
Jan 2002
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002iaf..confe.761b&link_type=abstract
IAF abstracts, 34th COSPAR Scientific Assembly, The Second World Space Congress, held 10-19 October, 2002 in Houston, TX, USA.,
Other
Scientific paper
A recent NASA program, Space Solar Power Exploratory Research and Technology (SERT), investigated the technologies needed to provide cost-competitive ground baseload electrical power from space based solar energy conversion. This goal mandated low cost, light weight gigawatt (GW) power generation. Investment in solar power generation technologies would also benefit high power military, commercial and science missions. These missions are generally those involving solar electric propulsion, surface power systems to sustain an outpost or a permanent colony on the surface of the moon or mars, space based lasers or radar, or as large earth orbiting power stations which can serve as central utilities for other orbiting spacecraft, or as in the SERT program, potentially beaming power to the earth itself. This paper will discuss requirements for the two latter options, the current state of the art of space solar cells, and a variety of both evolving thin film cells as well as new technologies which may impact the future choice of space solar cells for a high power mission application. The space world has primarily transitioned to commercially available III-V (GaInP/GaAs/Ge) cells with 24-26% air mass zero (AMO) efficiencies. Research in the III-V multi-junction solar cells has focused on fabricating either lattice-mismatched materials with optimum stacking bandgaps or new lattice matched materials with optimum bandgaps. In the near term this will yield a 30% commercially available space cell and in the far term possibly a 40% cell. Cost reduction would be achieved if these cells could be grown on a silicon rather than a germanium substrate since the substrate is ~65% of the cell cost or, better yet, on a polyimide or possibly a ceramic substrate. An overview of multi-junction cell characteristics will be presented here. Thin film cells require substantially less material and have promised the advantage of large area, low cost manufacturing. However, space cell requirements dictate a more complicated trade space. Until recently the focus in space cells has been on efficiency rather than cost. In a several billion-dollar spacecraft the cell cost is relatively small at even a thousand dollars per watt, which is approximately the current array cost. This has primarily been true for spacecraft with power needs from a few hundred watts to tens of kilowatts. However, deployment of a large earth orbiting space power system will require major advances in the photovoltaic array weight, stability in the space environment, efficiency, and ultimately the cost of production and deployment of such arrays. The development of large space power systems, and a host of other proposed space missions, will require the development of viable thin film arrays. The specific power required is almost 40 times what is presently available in commercial arrays. While high efficiency ultra lightweight arrays are not likely to become commercially available anytime soon, advances in thin film photovoltaics may still impact other space technologies (i.e., thin film integrated power supplies) and thus support a broad range of missions in the next decade. Mission examples include micro- air vehicles, ultra-long duration balloons (e.g. Olympus), deep space solar electric propulsion (SEP) "Tug" Array, Mars SEP Array, and Mars surface power outpost. A discussion of the state of the art of thin film cells and their characteristics will be included, particularly focused on their applicability to the space environment. This survey of thin film cells will also include a discussion of inorganic/organic solar cells and their adaptability to the space environment. Enhancements to the efficiency of thin film cells, such as intermediate band quantum dots will be discussed and results presented for current cell configurations.
Bailey Stephen
Hepp A.
Landis Geoff
Raffaelle Ryne
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