Spacecraft Power Subsystem Technology Selection

This paper presents meta-heuristics techniques applied to the optimization of spacecraft electrical power system (SEPS). The main design trades for technology selection while designing SEPS are solar cells, solar array, secondary batteries and bus voltage. The optimization objective is to determine the best choice of these variables that can provide the minimum cost and mass. The design requirements which depend on the mission choice like, average power, mission life, temperature and radiation environment, both for low earth and geosynchronous earth orbit are considered here. In solving this problem, two meta-heuristic techniques namely genetic algorithms and simulated annealing are used and the results of both are compared.