The use of sounding rockets for calibrating solar cells offers two principal advantages: there is no effect due to the terrestrial atmosphere and the cells are recoverable immediately after calibration. Four n/p photovoltaic cells were calibrated in space and successfully recovered from a NASA Aerobee rocket that reached a peak altitude of 251 km. Two of the cells were optically filtered with 0.6 to 0.9-micron bandpass filters. The short-circuit current agreed to within 4% of the laboratory calibration; variation of cell output due to atmospheric attenuation in the altitude range of 80 to 251 km was 0.4% for the unfiltered cells.


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    Title :

    High altitude calibration of solar cells using rockets


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    Optics in solar energy utilization


    Publication date :

    1975-01-01


    Type of media :

    Miscellaneous


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English





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