19th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, Paris France, June 7-11 2004

PHOTOVOLTAIC CELL OPERAWON ON It&-lRS

Phillip P. Jenkins and

mailstop 302-1, 21000 Brookpark Road Cleveland, OH 44135 USA

1 SOLAR CELLS ON MARS

cells on the Martian surface

Brth's surface or in

constraint on the allowed latitude of the landing site, on the amount of power available for science

s on the surface

environment in operate [l]. Major

lower solar intensity due to greater

0

the solar spectrum and redu intensity [2-5]

deposition of dust on the arrays [q low operating temperatma

se triple-junction the mission did

'J1111111 4

ation Rover (MECR) v

2 SOLARENERGY

The solar energy OR the Martian surface of dust in the atmos

ow modeled results of the total solar urface at the MER-1 Gusev Crater o different dust conditions, a low

case, the direct illumination is reduced, while the

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20050198947 2020-05-13T23:16:15+00:00Z

Figure 3: Sunlight on Mars Qugh dust case, tau = 0.95).

r the case of an optical depth t

conditions at the MER rover sites near the landing day.

atmospheric dust settles on the changing the spectrum and also

reducing the performance as the mission duration increases

3 OPERATION OF SOLAR CELLS ON MARS

ated the first use of triple-

3.1 Laboratory measurements The solar cell performance will depend on the

of the arrays. For on the MERsolar imited by the top

g that it is primarily

length cut-off of about 650 nm (0.65

s 7 and 8 show the effect of temperature on the cell performance, showing measurements made

d Mars intensity under

Figure 6: Measured external quantum efficiency of the top sub-cell of the MER rover solar array.

Effcd of TemperaWre MI Voc

3 2 operation on M&

Figure 9: MER Solar array on Mars

Figure 10: Short circuit current during the first day on Mars

m h o n to the Martian polar regions will use a n advanced flexible solar array.

4 REFERENCES