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NASA has proposed a series of missions called “Fire and Ice”. Aspects of these missions include a search for ice caps on Mercury and the Solar Probe to explore the Sun’s corona and the solar wind. These missions pose significant challenges for power systems that use photovoltaic power sources. This paper discusses a range of photovoltaic options for this class of missions and presents a simple methodology for selecting the appropriate technology. A range of photovoltaic power systems with band gaps from 1.0 to 3.0 eV is considered. The power output as a function of solar distance is presented and the implications discussed.

Most current TPV systems use either large radiators or enhanced cooling systems to keep the photovoltaic cell (PV) temperature close to room temperature. As a result, two problems are encountered: one is that the large radiator leads to significant integration problems with the spacecraft and limited sensor view angles. The other is that the enhanced cooling components not only reduce the system efficiency but also add moving parts in the system, which contradicts one of the TPV benefits of no moving parts. It is clear that the issue of cell temperature is crucial for space/terrestrial applications. Thus, in order to make the TPV system suitable for these applications, this temperature problem must be resolved. If the solar cells can be operated in the 150 to 225 °C range, the radiator will be significantly reduced. The strategy for this research is to select cells with a wider bandgap and then shrink the bandgap by raising cell temperature to ensure a match to selective emitters.