A fascinating experiment is underway at the Marshall Space Flight Center to demonstrate the potential of a new form of solar sail which does away with the fabric entirely. Instead of attempting to deploy a troublesome sail made of mylar, the E-Sail uses instead a series of thin aluminum wires spun out from the slowly […]
For a brief period in the 1990’s, Solar Thermal Propulsion appeared to be on the cusp of becoming the next big thing in space technology. While that obviously has not happened yet, a recent NASA Future in Space Operations (FISO) presentation from Marshall Space Flight Center suggests it may still be an approach whose time […]
Deployed! Image Credit The Planetary Society It was hard won, but after series of scares involving low battery readings, software glitches and communication dropouts, the Planetary Society has declared its cubesat based LightSail experiment a success. The 3U cubesat launched into space as a secondary payload aboard an Atlas V on May 20th, the same […]
Image Credit: Tesla Motors Last week, Tesla Motors unveiled its new “non automotive” product line, and as anyone who has been following the company already knew, it was a home battery pack, named Powerwall. If you have not yet seen the 18 minute event, there are far less productive ways to start your week. Innerspace […]
Two news stories concerning solar power. The first, from Extreme Tech details efforts to make a completely transparent solar panel which could be placed nearly anywhere, from your phone screen to windows in a building. The main challenge is the fact that a solar cannot actually be clear or it can’t do its job very […]
The Motley Fool has an informative piece out today entitled “Solving Solar Power’s Biggest Problem.” The article focuses on the issue of energy generation at night, or in inclement weather and two different projects by the same company using mirrors to concentrate the sunlight, which is called CSP technology. The company, Torresol Energy out of […]
Innerspace.net routinely tracks developments in the solar power industry due to its extreme significance for life off-Earth. Every increase in solar cell efficiency means a reduction either increased power in space, or on other worlds, or a reduction in the amount of mass required to supply a given amount of power. Physics.org has an interesting […]
NASA announced a new initiative today, one aimed at achieving breakthroughs in energy storage devices. This is one of those areas where an unexpectedly positive outcome could have unusually broad ramifications. It is worth pointing out however, that one of the reasons the agency needs an alternative to batteries is that it has walked away […]
Researchers in Spain with the Spanish National Resource Council have discovered a means of harvesting infrared radiation and concerting it into electricity using silicone solar cells. Abstract from Nature Communications: “Silicone is the material of choice for visible light photodetection and solar cell fabrication. However, due to the intrinsic band gap properties of silicon, most […]
Several items regarding solar power. First a press release from Chinese solar company Trina Solar, which working with the Australian National University has developed solar cells with conversion efficiencies above 24%. The current average global average is around 15%. Next the Guardian takes a look at a promising crystal structure called perovskites, and how they […]
Recent Comments