Satellites and other spacecraft, landers, and rovers are often powered by solar cells. Capable of working for years without replacement, they are a proven technology, but they are also a technology that can be improved. Over time, solar panels degrade in the harsh space environment, where they are plagued by radiation. Here on Earth, researchers are constantly trying to find new, more rugged, efficient, and construction-friendly designs to integrate into a clean power future.

And it turns out that a new design of solar panels – perovskites – that suffer on Earth may be perfect for space. Researcher Ian Sellers explains: Perovskites are exciting to a lot of people in the photovoltaics community because this new solar cell material can reach high efficiencies and has done so quickly and relatively simply. But these materials also have significant issues in terms of stability and yield, particularly in atmospheric conditions – moisture, oxygen degrades this material, so it was interesting that there were a few people who suggested that despite these terrestrial instability issues, this system appeared radiation hard and appropriate for space.

To test this possibility, the environment of space needs to be brought to Earth or at least simulated in a lab. A new paper in Joule that is led by Ahmad Kirmani details what kinds of conditions need to be simulated with this novel solar technology.

And I mean novel. Sellers goes on to explain: These perovskites are very close to being like a liquid, so when they’re damaged, they self-heal. Perovskites, like a tub of water, will be disordered and damaged in space, but will also very quickly settle or heal and go back to normal. What we’ve done is to create a protocol, a set of conditions that perovskite cells must be tested at before they go into space, so that the global community is testing these materials properly and in the same way.

Solar cells of the future may be weird. They will certainly be wonderful. I can’t wait to see them come into being.

More Information

The University of Oklahoma press release

“Countdown to perovskite space launch: Guidelines to performing relevant radiation-hardness experiments,” Ahmad R. Kirmani et al., 2022 April 11, Joule