Direct Comparison of Ground and In-Flight Measurements of New Multi-Junction Solar Cell Technologies

¹ Naval Research Laboratory, 4555 Overlook Ave. SW, Washington, DC, USA
² SolAero Technologies, 10420 Research Rd. SE Albuquerque, NM, USA
³ Air Force Research Laboratory, 3550 Aberdeen Ave Kirtland AFB, NM, USA
⁴ Boeing-Spectrolab, 12500 Gladstone Ave, Sylmar, CA, USA
⁵ NASA Glenn Research Center, 21000 Brookpark Rd. Cleveland, OH, USA
⁶ Ohio Aerospace Institute, 22800 Cedar Point Rd. Cleveland, OH, USA

nrl_pv_research@nrl.navy.mil
email, Benjamin_Cho@solaerotech.com
AFRL.VSSVOrgMailbox@us.af.mil
email, james.h.ermer@boeing.com
email, eric.m.rehder@boeing.com
email, daniel.c.law@boeing.com
email, Michael.J.Krasowski@nasa.gov
email, lawrence.greer@nasa.gov
email, joseph.m.flatico@nasa.gov

Abstract

The pace of development for new photovoltaic structures such as the inverted meta-morphic (IMM) IIIV cells, exceeds the pace at which spectrally matched, calibrated, solar cells can be created due to the infrequent opportunities of balloon or space based calibration. As such, laboratories must rely on previous generation AM0 calibrated cells and make appropriate corrections. Equally challenging is measuring the same cells in space without a controlled laboratory environment. It is within this context, the 3^rd Forward Technology Solar Cell Experiment (FTSCE III), measured three, four and five junction advanced technology solar cells in space. This report compares the beginning-of-life in-flight measurements with the laboratory measurements made before flight.