news review Astrium GaAs pumps up the power
ASTRIUM has installed the one millionth solar cell from its supplier AZUR Space, a medium-sized supplier of solar cells based in Heilbronn, Germany. The firm delivered its 300th solar array in the presence of the Bavarian State Minister of Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology, Martin Zeil. Astrium has also signed a long-term cooperation agreement with AZUR Space. The 100-strong Astrium team is currently busy preparing the solar arrays for the European BepiColombo Mercury probe. Astrium is also developing the world’s most modern solar array for the new European ALPHABUS telecommunications satellite.
“Weather observation, environmental monitoring, disaster management, navigation, telecommunications from space and numerous scientific missions – all these applications would be impossible without Astrium’s particularly reliable solar arrays,” said Evert Dudok, CEO of Astrium Satellites. “Today’s modern gallium arsenide solar cells, that we install in space, have now reached an efficiency of up to 28 percent, making them more than twice as efficient as the solar cells currently used for roof installations. Space then can contribute to improving conditions on Earth, and, as the number one European company for space technologies, were are acting as an innovation driver for terrestrial applications.”
The solar arrays developed and manufactured by Astrium have an output ranging from a few hundred watts up to 26 kilowatts. Featuring some 20,000 solar cells and a wingspan of up to 19 metres (for each panel either side of the spacecraft), a solar array weighs no more than 145 kilograms and is folded during launch to a thickness of 30 centimetres. Once the satellite is in space, two of these solar wings are deployed to the left and right of the satellite to meet its electrical power needs. To date, not a single Astrium solar array has failed while in operation. The production facility features three parallel integration lines, enabling up to nine large arrays to be in production. A cleanroom provides space for production, integration and testing benefiting from the fact that all the development and manufacturing processes are carried out in one single place.
March 2012
www.compoundsemiconductor.net 13
Astrium has developed a patented method of detecting potential breakages and other defects in its solar cells. Solar cells can be operated in reverse – in other words electroluminescence.
Currently, Astrium in Ottobrunn is also developing solar arrays for the European Space Agency’s BepiColombo
interplanetary probe, which is due to embark on its journey to Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, in 2014.
The biggest challenge here is preparing the arrays to withstand temperature fluctuations ranging between -130 and +270 degrees Celsius and to protect them from the sun’s intense UV radiation.
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