Talk:Solar panels on spacecraft

Cleanup and POV
Seeing as I'm too busy improving the parent article, I really don't have the time to fix up this article. First off, the information is unorganized. What'd be great is if it can be organized into sections. Another problem is the bias in the article: it's making out solar power + things in space to be the best thing since Wikipedia. This could be balanced out with disadvantages/the bad part of using solar power in space, or official criticisms could be added. —M ESSED R OCKER (talk) 22:19, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup
I cleaned up the page a little bit. I reorganized the paragraphs separated them into coherent sections. I tried to remove some of the NPOV, but there still might be some left. Can someone check it for me? -Steve 14:04, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Confused with propulsion
This page needs to be be heavily edited. It contains a lot of irrelevant material about solar electric propulsion and hall thrusters which belong over in the propulsion pages. This page actually contains very little data about the ostensible topic, which is use of solar panels (solar arrays actually) for electric power.Charles!

Agreed. Also, it's odd that SMART-1 is the only example of electric propulsion currently cited. If I were to cite a single example, it would something like stationkeeping on geosynchronous satellites or Deep Space 1. Better would be a pointer to an article on solar-electric (or just electric) propulsion.24.6.86.200 (talk) 06:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I find it odd that the article has a section on "Future Uses" but says nothing about current uses.
 * Currently the article says "To date, solar power, other than for propulsion, has been practical for spacecraft operating no farther from the sun than the orbit of Mars" and then says nothing further about propulsion.
 * I think this article should mention various "current uses" -- including propulsion.
 * I agree that details about electric propulsion is out of place in this "solar panels on spacecraft" article. That information should go in the electric propulsion article.
 * --68.0.124.33 (talk) 05:51, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Lifetime?
Expected lifetime in orbit and degradation over time is missing from this article. --IanOsgood (talk) 18:06, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

power vs energy
The wording used presently confuses power & energy. The later must, by definition involve time. Since the terms of measurement used throughout the article are in terms of power (w/sq m), I've only changed the use of energy to power. I would have rather changed the terms of measurement, but have not idea what they are, hence my changes. Gpfx (talk) 19:02, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Power beamed to craft from ground
A proposed way to power spacecraft is to beam (via laser) power from the ground to the spacecraft, where it is turned to electricity by photovoltaic panels. I'm not sure that this should be included, as although it uses photovoltaic ("solar") panels, it does not actually use energy from the Sun. It's mentioned on the magnetoplasmadynamic thruster page. Thoughts?Mathwhiz90601 (talk) 20:04, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Efficiencies?
Efficiencies, %, W/m^2? 12.33.223.215 (talk) 17:03, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

What mass are these panels say per sq meter
What do these solar panel weigh (mass), are newer designs lighter ? What power to mass ratio say near earth orbit ? - Rod57 (talk) 08:48, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
 * State of the art is about 7kg/kW at 1 AU according to a NASA doc. - Rod57 (talk) 01:46, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Deployable Solar Arrays
Not certain where this is / where to put it, but information on folding/deployable solar panels, and various strategies that have been employed. Oragami folding ones, those new Roll Out Solar Array s etc?

I think this page would be a good fit, what do you think?

Eric Lotze (talk) 21:15, 6 July 2021 (UTC)