Power degradation studies of the Mir solar array return experiment

摘要

A Russian solar array was recently returned from the Mir spacestation after 125 months on-orbit and made available to US investigatorsfor detailed post-flight analysis. The array, consisting of eight panelsof silicon cells, was deployed on June 16, 1987 as one of four segmentsof an array located directly above the Kvant-2 module. After removal andpackaging by Russian cosmonauts in November, 1997, it was brought backto Earth by the STS-89 mission two months later. Detailed post-flightperformance measurements of one panel show that its overall powerconversion efficiency degraded from a BOL value of about 9% to 4.8%, duenot to an overall degradation in cell conversion efficiency but ratherto circuit disruptions in several of the parallel connected strings. Inthis paper, the photovoltaic post-flight analysis is presented, as wellas a detailed description of the array technology