Solar Generator Designs for Missions Toward the Sun Surviving up to 22 Solar Constants

Author

Gerlach, Lothar ; Petry, Dirk ; Oxynos-Lauschke, Christiane ; Krautwald, Reinhard

Author_Institution

ESA/ESTEC, Noordwijk

Volume

2

fYear

2006

fDate

38838

Firstpage

1927

Lastpage

1930

Abstract

The European Space Agency (ESA) has several scientific missions planned to the inner planets and towards the Sun. Under supervision from ESA, EADS Astrium GmbH has developed the solar array (SA) for the Venus Express mission (arrived at Venus on April 11th, 2006) and is developing the next generation of high temperature SA´s (up to 320degC). These SA´s shall serve the BepiColombo mission to Mercury (14.5 kW/m² plus 6.2 kW/m² IR) and the Solar Orbiter mission (max. 29.8 kW/m²). The paper will present details of the VEX and BepiColombo/SOLO solar array designs, identifies the key design drivers, trades and solutions for the development of a solar array for high temperature applications

Keywords

Mercury (planet); Venus; high-temperature techniques; solar cell arrays; AD 2003 04 11; BepiColombo mission; BepiColombo/SOLO solar array designs; EADS Astrium GmbH; ESA; European Space Agency; Mercury; Solar Orbiter mission; VEX solar array design; Venus; Venus Express mission; high temperature solar array; inner planets; solar constants; solar generator designs; Earth; Fasteners; Gold; Mercury (planets); Planetary orbits; Solar power generation; Space vehicles; Sun; Temperature; Venus;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, Conference Record of the 2006 IEEE 4th World Conference on

Conference_Location

Waikoloa, HI

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0017-1

Electronic_ISBN

1-4244-0017-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WCPEC.2006.279874

Filename

4060040