Solar array development for the surface of Mars

JPL's missions to Mars have revealed factors that have an adverse impact on the performance of Mars Surface Solar Arrays. These factors include a spectrum shift toward the red wavelengths, atmospheric scattering and absorption and accumulation of Mars surface dust on arrays. All of these factors will reduce the power generated from state of the art triple junction solar cells designed for Earth orbiting satellites. This paper will report the results of JPL-supported work conducted by US solar array manufacturers to increase the performance of solar arrays for future Mars surface missions. JPL awarded four vendors contracts to evaluate methods of improving power generation on the surface of Mars. These four contracts cover the redesign of the existing triple junction solar cell, modifying solar simulator output to match the Mars surface spectrum and techniques to control or remove dust from the surface of the arrays. The methodology and results of this evaluation will be presented in this paper.