Significant advances in the development of light-weight, compact, reliable, and cost-effective electrical power system (EPS) components are required to enable the design of future large satellite systems (10-100 kW/sub e/). Alkali-metal thermal-to-electric converters (AMTEC), a form of direct energy conversion technology, are being developed as a high efficiency, radiation hard converter for high electrical power on a satellite platform. A satellite electrical power system based on AMTEC would consist of a collector to gather sunlight and focus the energy into a receiving cavity surrounded by AMTECs to convert the thermal energy to electrical energy. Large systems are robust and have been projected to achieve specific power levels as high as 14 W/sub e//kg in geosynchronous orbits and power levels as high as 150 kW/sub e/. An AMTEC based system would accept thermal energy at 1200 K, reject heat at 600 K, and could achieve as high as 25% efficiency with 120 W/sub e//kg and 200 W/sub e//1 (AMTEC component level) at high voltage (100 V). This paper outlines a conceptual high power solar-thermal system utilizing AMTEC and examines the advantages and disadvantages of such as system as compared to conventional photovoltaic based systems.
Solar thermal power system concepts for high power satellites
2000 IEEE Aerospace Conference. Proceedings (Cat. No.00TH8484) ; 4 ; 69-74 vol.4
2000-01-01
820956 byte
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Solar Thermal Power System Concepts for High Power Satellites
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