{"id":268735,"date":"2017-01-30T04:30:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?guid=d537a4551a59d6e2966e09dc70febe50"},"modified":"2017-01-30T04:30:00","modified_gmt":"2017-01-30T08:30:00","slug":"cheops-solar-cells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=268735","title":{"rendered":"Cheops solar cells"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2017\/01\/cheops_solar_cells\/16624027-1-eng-GB\/Cheops_solar_cells_small.jpg\" width=\"170\" height=\"96\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"8\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\nESA\u2019s CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite mission \u2013 Cheops \u2013 underwent important testing last year to be ready for launch by the end of 2018.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nCheops will operate from a low orbit circling Earth, taking its power from the Sun. As such, an important focus of the prelaunch testing is qualifying the satellite\u2019s solar arrays and their cells.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe image shows part of the 12 solar cell assemblies in the Vacuum Solar Cell Illumination Facility at ESA\u2019s technical centre in the Netherlands.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe cells were heated to high temperatures to reflect what the satellite will experience once in space. In fact, the actual temperatures were scaled in order to accelerate the ageing effects experienced in flight, to represent a 3.5 year mission in just a few months.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe cells spent 2000 hours at 140\u00baC, 2000 hours at 160\u00baC and 2090 hours at 175\u00baC. After the tests, the cells\u2019 maximum power and short circuit current had degraded by less than 2%, clearly below the acceptance criterion of 3%.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAs a result of these tests, the Cheops solar arrays and their elements are now ready for the mission.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nOnce in space, Cheops will measure the density of exoplanets with sizes or masses in the super-Earth to Neptune range. Its data will set new constraints on the structure of planets in this mass range, and therefore also on their formation and evolution.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nRead more about last year\u2019s tests: <a href=\"http:\/\/sci.esa.int\/cheops\/58643-6-cheops-solar-arrays-tested-and-built\/\"><i>Cheops solar arrays tested and built<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2017\/01\/cheops_solar_cells\/16624027-1-eng-GB\/Cheops_solar_cells_small.jpg\" width=\"170\" height=\"96\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"8\"><\/p>\n<p>\nESA&rsquo;s CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite mission &ndash; Cheops &ndash; underwent important testing last year to be ready for launch by the end of 2018.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nCheops will operate from a low orbit circling Earth, taking its power from the Sun. As such, an important focus of the prelaunch testing is qualifying the satellite&rsquo;s solar arrays and their cells.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe image shows part of the 12 solar cell assemblies in the Vacuum Solar Cell Illumination Facility at ESA&rsquo;s technical centre in the Netherlands.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe cells were heated to high temperatures to reflect what the satellite will experience once in space. In fact, the actual temperatures were scaled in order to accelerate the ageing effects experienced in flight, to represent a 3.5 year mission in just a few months.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe cells spent 2000 hours at 140&ordm;C, 2000 hours at 160&ordm;C and 2090 hours at 175&ordm;C. After the tests, the cells&rsquo; maximum power and short circuit current had degraded by less than 2%, clearly below the acceptance criterion of 3%.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAs a result of these tests, the Cheops solar arrays and their elements are now ready for the mission.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nOnce in space, Cheops will measure the density of exoplanets with sizes or masses in the super-Earth to Neptune range. Its data will set new constraints on the structure of planets in this mass range, and therefore also on their formation and evolution.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nRead more about last year&rsquo;s tests: <a href=\"http:\/\/sci.esa.int\/cheops\/58643-6-cheops-solar-arrays-tested-and-built\/\"><i>Cheops solar arrays tested and built<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=268735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":268736,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268735\/revisions\/268736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=268735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=268735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=268735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}