Solar/Charging

How efficient are they?
- Seems to be about 30%
  
  https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/MJJK5lx61Yuc4URN5NiUb74einSLaEdjmPQTUSjpxO4V6HbgcF2XvZg_FIYgz15sqgwD4Bf0S6qfIAaEiW2OeVDiZqAox7rxiq6kCbGnvU9fu4vUL966gGRGiIVe_cT6UrpbeTwK
MPPT
- Yes
Cell balancing (if more than 1S)
- Yes
Are they any issues we can run into with putting these in space?
How many panels do we need??
- Seeing commercial designs go up to 8 inputs
  - With 4 MPPT converters
GaAs cells around 25-30% efficient
- Triple junction solar cells
Silicon cells around 16% efficient
Getting assembled panels is stupid expensive
- A few thousand dollars
- https://www.endurosat.com/cubesat-store/cubesat-solar-panels/1u-solar-panel-x-y/
- https://nanoavionics.com/cubesat-components/cubesat-gaas-solar-panel/
- https://www.cubesatshop.com/product/single-cubesat-solar-panels/
- Can pay more to get integrated sun sensors, gyros and magnetorquers, built onto the back
- Just seems like a standard PCB with cells on the front and hardware on the back
Getting cells and assembling it ourselves seems more affordable
- Brown said their design ran them $250 in cells (2.50-4 bucks per cell)
Manufacturers
- Spectrolabs
  - Brown
  - https://www.spectrolab.com/photovoltaics.html
- TrisolX
  - Ambasat and Brown
  - Shop link broken
  - https://trisolx.com/contact.html
- Azurspace
  - [email protected]
- Emcore
  - [email protected]
- SolArero
  - [email protected]
- https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/detail/anysolar-ltd/KXOB25-14X1F-TR/9990479
  - Cells that the $1000 cubesat guy uses
    - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqz5tTbY_hI&ab_channel=RGSATRGSAT
Might be worth asking midsun what kinda cells they use and if they have any old ones we can buy/steal for testing