NASA’s missions have always been at the forefront of modern technology. Solar cells and solar collectors (Solaranlage) work in tandem to generate power to power both manned and unmanned missions. However unlike the solar awning (Markisen) we use at home these solar collectors are capable of high energy which is able to propel the probe off-world.
The Genisis spacecraft which was launched on August 8, 2001 with the sole purpose of retuning to earth with samples from space was also the first “sample return mission” after the Apollo Program. The Genisis spacecraft contained highly efficient solar collectors which were meant for both sample collection as well as collecting the rays of the sun as efficiently as possible. Made from some of the most exotic materials on earth such as sapphire, pure silicon wafers, and diamond type carbon films etc. The Genisis spacecraft was a success mainly because of its collector which performed with dual efficiently i.e. sample collection, solar wind propulsion and power generation.
Since the successful Genisis mission NASA has made it a point to include better and more efficient solar collectors in every mission. Each NASA mission focuses on various aspects of the space vehicle the most important of which is its solar collectors which seem to be constantly evolving and improving in efficiency. However the problem with many of NASA’s collectors is their cost which makes them impractical to implement in commercial mainstream electronics markets where there is a growing need for highly efficient collectors.
The second problem with NASA’s collectors is that they used highly specialized material which will be hard to procure if you were to mass produce these collectors for commercial use. These collectors then also have to be modified for earth use as all of NASA’s collectors are exclusively designed to be used in space.
According to a latest press release by NASA the goal of their research is to ultimately design solar collectors which will be efficient enough to power a manned mission to Mars. This might seem impossible to achieve right now especially as the launch process of these missions requires lots of liquid fuels but if NASA’s researchers have their way we could be seeing space vehicles fully powered by highly efficient solar cells which generate enough power to some how power the boosters enough to launch it out of earth’s orbit. However people will be watching closely to see just how well solar collectors evolve during unmanned missions but by the looks of it, this just might be possible.