NASA glenn research center solar cell experiment onboard the international space station

Abstract

Accurate air mass zero (AM0) measurement is essential for the evaluation of new photovoltaic (PV) technology for space solar cells. The NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) has flown an experiment designed to measure the electrical performance of several solar cells onboard NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's (GSFC) Robotic Refueling Mission's (RRM) Task Board 4 (TB4) on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS). Four industry and government partners provided advanced PV devices for measurement and orbital environment testing. The experiment was positioned on the exterior of the station for approximately eight months, and was completely self-contained, providing its own power and internal data storage. Several new cell technologies including four-junction (4J) Inverted Metamorphic Multi-junction (IMM) cells were evaluated and the results will be compared to ground-based measurement methods.