COMSAT Laboratories' new approach to measuring the degradation of solar cell arrays on spacecraft has been applied to a large number of spacecraft solar arrays in geosynchronous orbit. This method was previously applied to the MARISAT spacecraft and has recently been applied to five INTELSAT V spacecraft. Statistical analysis techniques were used to fit the array models to telemetry data with a high degree of accuracy. These techniques include an analysis of longitude-dependence of the degradation of solar cell arrays caused by geomagnetically trapped electrons that were obtained from several spacecraft stationed at various longitudes. All results indicate that the geosynchronous, trapped-electron environment varies with longitude, as suggested by Stassinopoulos. However, unlike the three MARISAT spacecraft, which have remained at constant longitude, the periodic relocation of the INTELSAT V spacecraft has made it difficult to pinpoint the precise manner in which that environment varies.
In-orbit performance of intelsat spacecraft solar arrays
Umlauf-Leistung der Sonnenbatterien der Intelsat-Raumfahrzeuge
1985
5 Seiten, 9 Bilder, 1 Tabelle, 6 Quellen
Conference paper
English
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