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A bare-photovoltaic tether for consumable-less and autonomous space propulsion and power generation
- Source :
- Acta Astronautica
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2021.
-
Abstract
- State-of-the-art electrodynamic tethers reach a steady electric current by using a bare segment to capture electrons passively from the ambient plasma (anodic contact) and an active electron emitter or a tether segment coated with a low-work-function material (cathodic contact) to emit electrons back and close the electrical circuit. This work proposes to take advantage of recent developments on thin-film solar cells and insert a photovoltaic (pv) tether segment in between the anodic and the cathodic contacts. Since thin-film solar cells can be folded and manufactured with any desired length and the same cross-section dimensions as the bare segment, i.e. width and thickness around few centimeters and tens of microns, the resulting device is compact and preserves bare tether simplicity. Detailed analysis of the current and voltage profiles throughout the tether shows that the electrical power introduced by the pv-segment into the tether-plasma circuit improves the performance and makes them less dependent on ambient conditions. The pv-segment decreases considerably the tether-to-plasma bias at the cathodic contact, thus opening the possibility to emit substantial current while using consumable-less electron emitters like thermionic and electron field emitters. The pv-segment also favors the current collection by increasing the tether-to-plasma bias at the bare segment. Propulsion and power generation applications and alternative architectures of bare-pv tethers are briefly discussed. This work received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 828902 (E.T.PACK project). GSA work is supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades of Spain under the Grant RYC-2014-15357.
- Subjects :
- 020301 aerospace & aeronautics
Materials science
Spacecraft propulsion
business.industry
Photovoltaic system
Electrodynamic tether
Aerospace Engineering
Thermionic emission
02 engineering and technology
Combined bare tether and solar cell
Consumable-less tether with high current
01 natural sciences
7. Clean energy
Aeronáutica
Anode
0203 mechanical engineering
0103 physical sciences
Optoelectronics
Propulsion and power generation
Electric current
business
010303 astronomy & astrophysics
Voltage
Electron gun
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00945765
- Volume :
- 180
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Acta Astronautica
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....7c8a9e4c4f31110086ffa5a5e85d6fa0