Initial results from the second Forward Technology Solar Cell Experiment

Author

Jenkins, Phillip P. ; Walters, Robert J. ; Gonzalez, Maria ; Warner, Jeffrey H. ; Lorentzen, Justin R. ; Flatico, Joseph M. ; Greer, Lawrence C. ; Krasowski, Michael J.

Author_Institution

US Naval Res. Lab., Washington, DC, USA

fYear

2010

fDate

20-25 June 2010

Abstract

The success of the first Forward Technology Solar Cell Experiment (FTSCE) which flew as part of the 5th Materials on the International Space Station Experiments (MISSE-5) [1,2,3], led to a follow on experiment, FTSCE II. This experiment is currently operating on the International Space Station (ISS) as part of MISSE7. Solar cells are characterized with I-V curves. The test cells include current and next generation triple-junction production cells from Emcore and Spectrolab as well as advanced inverted metamorphic (IMM) and other thin film III-V cells from Emcore, Spectrolab and MicroLink Devices, Inc. Other thin film technologies include, advanced amorphous silicon concepts from United Solar Ovonic and a Copper Indium Selenide based two-cell string from Dutch Space. In this paper, The FTSCE II experiment is described and current status presented.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; amorphous semiconductors; elemental semiconductors; silicon; solar cells; space vehicles; 5th Materials; Dutch space; Emcore; I-V curves; International Space Station Experiments; MISSE-5; MISSE7; MicroLink Devices, Inc; Spectrolab; advanced inverted metamorphic; amorphous silicon; copper indium selenide; second forward technology; solar cell experiment; thin film III-V cells; triple-junction production cells; two-cell string; united solar ovonic; Orbits;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2010 35th IEEE

Conference_Location

Honolulu, HI

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-5890-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2010.5614728

Filename

5614728