Radiation-Hardened Stretched Lens Array

The DOD conducts strategic space missions in order to protect national security. Some of these missions fly in high-radiation orbits, where the radiation damage to the array limits lifetime, therefore compromising mission capability. In addition, rogue nations or terrorists might someday detonate a nuclear weapon at high altitude, hence adding substantial radiation to the natural belts, causing premature satellite losses. ENTECH and Auburn University propose to develop a Stretched Lens Array Technology Experiment (SLATE) to flight-validate this radiation-tolerant array. The Stretched Lens Array (SLA) offers unprecedented performance (>80 kW/sq.m. stowed power, >300 W/sq.m. areal power, and >300 W/kg specific power) and cost-effectiveness (50-75% savings in $/W compared to conventional solar arrays). SLA achieves these outstanding attributes by employing flexible Fresnel lenses for optical concentration (e.g., 8X), thereby minimizing solar cell area, mass, and cost. SLA’s small cell size (85% less cell area than planar high-efficiency arrays) also allows super-insulation and super-shielding of the solar cells to enable high-voltage operation and radiation hardness in the space environment. After SLATE, SLA’s demonstrated high performance and radiation tolerance, coupled with its substantial mass and cost advantages, will lead to many applications, not only for DOD missions, but also NASA and commercial missions.