NASA Europa Missions, projects and proposals for the 2020s |
NASA Europa Missions, projects and proposals for the 2020s |
Mar 5 2014, 12:53 AM
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Forum Contributor Group: Members Posts: 1374 Joined: 8-February 04 From: North East Florida, USA. Member No.: 11 |
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Jan 8 2016, 03:31 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2106 Joined: 13-February 10 From: Ontario Member No.: 5221 |
How plausible are solar panels for such a mission? Juno has it easy being an orbiter, with plenty of wingspan, but how large would efficiency advances in the next half decade have to be to make them worth it for extending a surface mission's duration?
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Jan 8 2016, 01:36 PM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 78 Joined: 20-September 14 Member No.: 7261 |
Beginning-of-life efficiency on current production GaAs triple-junction solar panels is close to 30% (InSight's panels are 26% iirc). Fraunhofer ISE designed some solar cells with up to 45% efficiency in 2013, which I think is still the record.
At Jupiter's distance with minimal absorption by Europa's atmosphere 45% would yield 22.5 Watt per square meter. Given time-to-travel, after three years that'd probably be around 80-85% of that, and after one year near Jupiter around 65-70%. Hence about 14.5 W/mē assured yield with theoretical high-efficiency solar panels, up to about 8.5 W/mē with what's currently employed (for comparison: Juno's panels are expected to yield around 6.0 W/mē at life end, about 3.5% more than what's needed for operations). Pretty much not feasible on solar alone. Possibly feasible with relatively large panels (3+ mē) combined with RHUs, provided rather minimal operations after a battery-powered first science phase and bouncing communications via a nearby space unit (i.e. flyby Clipper or orbiter). For ease of comparison, a single MMRTG at Jupiter distance would be pretty much equivalent to around 7.5 mē solar panels at the above high efficiency, or about 13.0-13.5 mē at current off-the-shelf efficiency. |
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