Increasing Available Power for Rapidly Produced, Configurable Satellite Buses Via Low-Cost American Made Solar Panels and Batteries

As the Space Development Agency (SDA) continues to iterate and integrate new payloads within the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) one of the largest constraints placed on the ability of future capability growth is available spacecraft power. As payloads become more capable and data rates increase throughout the network architecture, additional power will enable additional coverage and reduce latency for critical mission operations. The two major drivers of spacecraft power are generation (via solar arrays) and storage (via spacecraft batteries). To significantly increase spacecraft power, Apex proposes to:    1) Develop a novel panel architecture using mass produced silicon cells to deliver a high power and low cost panel design + 2) Transition electric vehicle lithium ion batteries into space-capable systems + 3) Utilize Lithium Ion Battery and Solar Array Manufacturing via IRA investments = Double in Spacecraft Power while Reducing Supply Chain Dependency While increasing the performance of both has its performance trade-offs (additional mass and volume) one of the largest obstacles to performance gains have been cost given the low quantity of spacecraft produced annually by manufacturers. Historically, manufacturers selected the most performant and lowest SWAP (Size, Weight, and Power) solar arrays and batteries leading to high cost. With the recent growth in spacecraft quantities due to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations manufacturers can now amortize the cost of tooling for recurring production across higher quantities of satellites and leverage technologies that have developed in the past two decades. Market research by Apex indicates that current bus solar arrays have on the order of 1200-1300W End of Life (EOL) and via this SBIR Apex aims to develop an array that can generate 2500W EOL.