The Pioneer Venus orbiter (PVO) solar panel power output capability has degraded much more severely than has the power output capability of solar panels that have operated in earth-orbiting spacecraft for comparable periods of time. The incidence of solar proton events recored by the spacecraft's scientific instruments accounts for this phenomenon only in part; it cannot explain two specific forms of anomalous behavior observed: 1) a variation of output per spin with roll angle, and 2) a gradual degradation of the maximum output. Analysis indicates that the most probable cause of the first anomaly is that the solar cells underneath the spacecraft's magnetometer boom have been damaged by a reverse biasing of the cells that occurs pulsed shadowing of the cells by the boom as the spacecraft rotates. The second anomaly might be caused by the effects on the solar array of substances from the upper atmosphere of Venus.
Flight performance of the Pioneer Venus orbiter solar array
Flugverhalten der Sonnenbatterie des Venus-Orbiter-Satelliten
1987
6 Seiten, 5 Bilder, 1 Tabelle, 14 Quellen
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Englisch
NTRS | 1974
NTIS | 1974
Pioneer Venus Orbiter Contributions to a Revised Venus Reference Ionosphere
Online Contents | 1997
|Pioneer Venus Orbiter Contributions to a Revised Venus Reference Ionosphere
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1997
|Pioneer to Venus - The multiprobe and orbiter missions
NTRS | 1984
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