Questions tagged [solar-power]
Questions on obtaining electrical energy from the light of the Sun through either direct photovoltaic conversion or thermal conversion.
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Solar Reflective Plasma Drive
I understand that solar sails have just recently been progressing to be of use. Could the solar sails be positioned to create a hyperbolic mirror to super heat a substance to produce propulsion along ...
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Who is manufacturing the solar panels for the Inmarsat Elera satellites?
We would like to estimate whether extreme geomagnetic storms would cause any trouble to the solar panels of Elera satellites.
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What's wrong with solar power on China's Tiangong space station?
There was recently an article on Golem.de which claimed, that the area of the solar panels in the picture are larger than half of a football field. Which is of course an ill defined unit of area (for ...
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Why use plutonium when sunlight is everywhere? Any proposals to use concentrated solar power instead of Pu238 as a heat source for TGs?
Why use plutonium when sunlight is everywhere? The case for powering thermoelectric generators (TG) with concentrated solar rather than plutonium:
Spacecraft operating in the inner Solar System ...
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Solar Turbines on the moon
Related to other questions about power generation on the moon.
URL's will be added shortly...
Given that force is experienced by objects hit by sunlight, such as a solar sail, would a turbine of some ...
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EPS sizing for lunar mission
As part of a university project, I am working on EPS sizing for a mission to the lunar environment. I have sized the SA and batteries, chosen the components and the PDCU; however, having never been in ...
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Is it possible to open and close ROSAs several times?
During the preliminary phase of designing a REUSABLE lander for the lunar surface from the gateway, the need to necessarily use deployable SAs came up. In addition, because of the descending and ...
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Would Li-Ion batteries for a lunar base energy storage system be transported to the base charged or uncharged?
I'm investigating lunar base power systems and energy storage systems (ESS). One option is photovoltaics (PV) and Li-Ion batteries. A large mass of batteries would be required to power the base during ...
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Could a “solar gravitational synchrotron ” use solar thermal rockets to "powerslide" spacecraft out of the solar system?
Could a “solar gravitational synchrotron ” use solar thermal steam rockets to launch spacecraft out of the solar system?
Solar thermal steam rockets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_rocket have ...
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At some point far from the Sun does the output of solar panels start dropping much faster than inverse square? If so, how fast?
I recall reading somewhere that solar power - already marginal at Jupiter - will cease to produce any power whatsoever at distances much further out than Saturn. Unfortunately I can not now find the ...
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What could spacecraft do with much more available power? Are spacecraft power limited?
I'm curious about how spacecraft would benefit having much more power for the same total mass. Solar panels are getting lighter, but would the extra power they could generate bring benefits to space ...
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How can we source potassium fluoride outside of Earth?
Potassium fluoride is the best known terrestrial option to purify the various materials used for the manufacturing of photovoltaic panels. Many of these materials can be found in regolith. The process ...
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Could a Stirling engine be used to produce more electricity in space?
A Stirling engine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine) is an engine which uses temperature differences to turn. In space it is hard to conduct heat so very often the sunny side of an object ...
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What if Perseverance had experienced a fault after dropping Ingenuity?
When Ingenuity was released on the Martian surface in April 2021, Perseverance had to drive away to let the helicopter recharge its batteries with its solar panel.
Was there a concern that the rover ...
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Mars Insight probe solar panels - could or are they being used to collect some types of surface illumination data?
A 31 March 2022 news item, Mars more volcanically active than we thought, marsquakes hidden in NASA Insight data suggest, states that in relation to measuring of seismic data,
A major source of noise ...
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