Survey of Current and Next Generation Space Power Technologies

Abstract : As part of an ongoing effort to improve responsiveness of power systems to meet future mission needs in space, an independent survey of conventional and emerging power technology options has been conducted. In this paper, all power technology options, both generation and storage, have been organized, using figures of merit relevant to space systems, to provide a basis for more effectively matching power technology options to future mission requirements. The goal was to initially organize technologies based on overall energy content normalized to mass and volume at the component level as a generic means for comparison, recognizing that if mission specific features, such as system level packaging and integration designs, were included in this initial survey, a certain level of bias would have been introduced into the results.

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