Spectrolab triangular solar cell evaluation for usage in PilsenCUBE picosatellite

Nowadays CubeSat class picosatellites offer support for serious scientific experiments onboard, but in the past, they were mainly used by universities for student training programs. Almost all of these small picosatellites have problem with low power due to small solar cells surface and small solar cell efficiency. Furthermore, the amount of energy from solar cells is smaller in orbit environments than expected from simplified calculations, so many CubeSats have power malfunctions. It could be due to underestimated several solar cells parameters dependencies. For more accurate calculations of picosatellite accessible power, it is necessary to known some important solar cells behaviors, which are unpublished. For example, efficiency dependence on the cells temperature and efficiency dependence on the sunlight incidence angle is not negligible. This paper is focused on discovering these dependencies and on improved calculations of the accessible solar power of Spectrolab triangular advanced solar cells. These cells (TASC) are based on triple junction gallium arsenide materials with germanium substrate and will be used for PilsenCUBE picosatellite.