Photo credit: NASA
NASA’s Game Changing Development (GCD) program, which focuses on new technologies to explore space, wants to build solar arrays which could recharge the their future electric propulsion spacecraft. It is seeking proposals from both government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for arrays capable of generating at least 30kW and possibly up to 250kW of energy. The GCD program will make three awards totaling $20 million for the first round of proposals encompassing the design, testing, and successful demonstration of the viability for scalable solar arrays in space.
“This call for proposals is a great opportunity to mature advanced and innovative solar array systems in preparation for a space demonstration and eventual use on all future space spacecraft requiring high power,” said Stephen Gaddis, Game Changing Development program manager at NASA’s Langley Research Center.
While the use of solar power for recharging batteries here on Earth is nothing new, the development and use of solar arrays in space to recharge spacecraft would indeed be a new frontier in harnessing the power of the sun. The recently scrapped space shuttles consumed 1,000 tons of solid propellant (16% aluminum) and 2,000,000 litres of liquid hydrogen on liftoff, and that was just for getting out of Earth’s orbit. If NASA is to successfully develop spacecraft for manned deep space missions, they are going to need crafts capable of traveling for months or even years, which with today’s technology would require much more fuel to be kept on board. Solar recharging stations could enable exploration of the deepest regions of outer space since the spacecraft would not have to carry their fuel with them for the journey; they could just fuel-up on the way like we do with our automobiles.