Development of high power solar panels for power demanding CubeSat missions

CubeSats are small, standardised satellites consisting of one or multiple 10x10x10cm3 units, with ~1kg per unit. They play an increasingly important role in commercial spaceflight and are being considered for more and more commercial and scientific space missions, due to the low-cost and low-risk approach. The size and mass constraints of CubeSats generally put a limitation on the available area for solar arrays and therefore power generation capability. This in effect limits the types of applications that can be flown on CubeSats. A number of commercial applications require very high power for enabling new generations of payloads (Earth Observation or space-based Telecommunications) or for operational reasons (for pointing-towards-Earth sensors or cooling-from-Sun-heat devices). These missions currently have to fly on much larger satellites that can provide the needed power. A significant increase of power available to CubeSats will be a game-changer by enabling a whole new range of missions to fit into the CubeSat format, drastically reducing the risk and cost associated with these missions. This project aims to establish a design for a high power solar panel system which can be integrated onto the standardised CubeSat platforms. The project aims to build an engineering model of a solar panel and perform integrated testing with a CubeSat. The high power solar panel system will feature innovative solutions to increase the power generated by the panel, while maintaining the mass and size restrictions. Novel solar panels and mechanisms will be combined into one system to deliver a more than 60% increase in power generated on CubeSats compared to the current state-of-the-art.