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But the X-37B will be flying in low Earth orbit, which means that it will pass through the planet’s shadow roughly every 90 minutes. If this kind of experiment was implemented on a satellite, it would be placed in an orbit where sunlight would almost always be available. The upcoming X-37B mission will put this space-hardened version of the sandwich module to the test.įlying the test on the Air Force’s secret space plane came with some compromises. Jaffe says this mainly involved swapping out materials and redesigning parts of the module so that the solar panel was isolated from the electronics, which operate better at lower temperatures.
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These electronics are just a few inches away from each other, so Jaffe and his colleagues had to figure out how to accommodate both extremes. In space, the solar panel facing the sun may reach temperatures of up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit, while the electronics facing away from it must operate at just a few degrees above absolute zero. Jaffe says one of the hardest challenges has been thermal management. “The sandwich module is a way to reduce mass and modularize the system so it could be assembled in orbit.” But before robots start building giant solar farms in space, there are a number of fundamental issues with the panels themselves that need to be addressed. “It would be too large and cumbersome to launch a completed system,” says Chris DePuma, an NRL electronics engineer and the program manager for the experiment. Even if these structures could be built in principle, they would be incredibly expensive and challenging to launch. One of the biggest problems with the concept is that the solar panels in orbit have to be massive to collect enough sunlight to be useful for applications on Earth. This design was meant to solve a number of challenges that have plagued space-based solar power research for years. Jaffe has been working on space-based solar power for more than a decade at NRL and first unveiled his sandwich module prototype in 2014. “This is the first time that any component geared towards a solar-powered satellite system has ever been tested in orbit.” “This is a major step forward,” says Paul Jaffe, an electronics engineer at the Naval Research Lab and lead researcher on the project.
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But the real star of the show is a small solar panel developed by the physicists at the Naval Research Lab that will be used to conduct the first orbital experiment with space-based solar power. NASA is sending up two experiments to study the effects of radiation on seeds, and the US Air Force Academy is using the space plane to deploy a small research satellite. In addition to its usual suite of secret military tech, the X-37B will also host a few unclassified experiments during its upcoming sojourn in space. Almost nothing is known about what X-37B does up there, but ahead of its sixth launch the Air Force gave some rare details about its cargo. The robotic orbiter looks like a smaller version of the space shuttle and has spent nearly eight of the past 10 years in space conducting classified experiments for the military. On Saturday, the US Air Force is expected to launch its secret space plane, X-37B, for a long-duration mission in low Earth orbit.