Solar panels on spacecraft supply power for two main uses: Power to run the sensors, active heating, cooling and telemetry. Power for electrically powered spacecraft propulsion, sometimes called electric propulsion or solar-electric propulsion.
The solar panels on the SMM satellite provided electrical power. Here it is being captured by an astronaut using the Manned Maneuvering Unit. Solar panels on spacecraft supply power for two main uses: Power to run the sensors, active heating, cooling and telemetry.
During the nearly month-long flight around the moon, NASA tested all functions of the uncrewed spacecraft, including the Orion crew capsule ’s innovative solar panels. The vehicle’s solar panels exceeded expectations, proving themselves to be a key technology for the future of human space exploration.
To date, solar power, other than for propulsion, has been practical for spacecraft operating no farther from the Sun than the orbit of Jupiter. For example, Juno, Magellan, Mars Global Surveyor, and Mars Observer used solar power as does the Earth-orbiting, Hubble Space Telescope.
(Space Solar Power Project/Caltech) Scientists at the California Institute of Technology are celebrating after a successful test flight of the technology needed for generating power from space.
Left to right: Sergio Pellegrino, Harry Atwater, and Ali Hajimiri, the principal investigators of the Space Solar Power Project. The idea of space-based solar power dates back to as early as 1923 when Russian theorist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky proposed using mirrors in space to concentrate a strong beam of sunlight down to Earth.