A Study on the Usage of TASC and UTJ Solar Cells in the Design of a Magnetically Clean CubeSat

Solar panel design is a key element of CubeSat architecture due to the limited amount of external area available in the CubeSat form factor. The Electron Losses and Fields Investigation (ELFIN) spacecraft is a spin stabilized 3U CubeSat focused on studying the nature of relativistic particle precipitation in the magnetosphere. The spacecraft has significant requirements placed on its magnetic cleanliness which stem from a high precision fluxgate magnetometer. In house development of solar panels is underway after a review of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) panels indicated that they were not designed with magnetic cleanliness in mind. The key features of ELFIN’s solar panels include optimization of trace routing in order to minimize current loops, geometric symmetries in cell placement to create opposing current loops, and a parallel bus architecture. Additional features that are not necessary for magnetic cleanliness but help to meet mission power and longevity requirements include protection diodes, EMIC shielding and thermal dissipation features. The trade space of SpectroLab UTJ and TASC solar cells is also examined in regards to their longevity, mechanical assembly difficulties, and magnetic considerations.