Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Solar Cell Output over long periods
Message-ID: <1990Sep18.040654.571@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1990Sep17.135311.1308@aablue.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 90 04:06:54 GMT

In article <1990Sep17.135311.1308@aablue.com> jb@aablue.com (John B Scalia) writes:
>... Would NASA documents of space born
>cells be of any accuracy as we get a far different spectrum down here?

Not likely to be relevant.  The dominant factor in lifetime of solar
arrays in space is radiation exposure from the Van Allen belts and
solar flares.  Particle radiation is really hard on solar cells.
(That big solar flare early this year -- the one that caused the Quebec
blackout, among other things -- knocked years off the lives of some
spacecraft in a few hours.)

A further complication is that spacecraft solar cells are cost-is-no-object
hardware which might have somewhat different characteristics from what you're
likely to find down here.
-- 
TCP/IP: handling tomorrow's loads today| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
OSI: handling yesterday's loads someday|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry