Advanced Thin Film PV UltraFlex Solar Array System

Thin film photovoltaics (PV) solar array systems offer significant mass and cost saving benefits for current and future space-flight missions. Much progress has been made in the development of thin film CIGS and amorphous silicon PV devices, however their integration into a solar array system has lagged. As these PV devices have evolved, ABLE has spent a significant amount of effort in developing many ultra?lightweight solar array systems that can take advantage of the lightweight PV devices. One of these systems is ABLE¿s UltraFlex solar array which forms the basis of this proposed effort. Recent internal studies have indicated that an UltraFlex solar array system populated with 10% efficient thin film PV represents a near term solution that can demonstrate state-of-the-art performance in terms of array mass (>300 w/kg BOL, >600 w/kg with 20% efficient devices), cost (order of magnitude reduction) and stowed volume (<20% of a conventional planar array). The objective of this proposed Phase 1 proposal is to integrate thin film PV to the proven UltraFlex structure in an effort to demonstrate these outstanding performance values.