![\"DCUBED](\"https:\/\/cdn.satnow.com\/news\/cube_C_638358002736911798.png\")
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DCUBED, the German NewSpace hardware manufacturer, and Solestial, the U.S. solar energy company for space, have announced a new solar array product designed to make space more affordable. <\/p>\n
The new product, a scaled demonstration that was shown at the Space Tech Expo trade show in Bremen, will marry the specialist technologies of both companies, using DCUBED\u2019s in-space manufactured back structure and Solestial\u2019s thin and flexible silicon solar blanket. The back structure element, essentially the support structure for the solar array, will be built in space when deployed. <\/p>\n
Given the high-power consumption of smaller satellites that are now forming the vast bulk of communication constellations, the new deployable smallsat solar array will make an invaluable contribution to reducing mission costs, by reducing both material costs and mass. The companies estimate that those savings could be as much as ten times\u2014one order of magnitude\u2014cheaper than existing solutions. <\/p>\n
DCUBED and Solestial will perform an in-orbit demonstration of the solar array in the second half of next year, with a 1kW solar array product ready in 2025 and a 10kW version available in 2026. <\/p>\n
Thomas Sinn, the CEO of DCUBED<\/strong>, commented \u201cI am excited that we will be working with Solestial on a product that promises, in just the next couple of years, to revolutionize power consumption for smallsats. Our planned solar array will drastically reduce the cost of powering orbital transport vehicles, in-orbit servicing missions, and the thousands of small satellites that form constellations. Our space heritage in manufacturing and Solestial\u2019s unique approach to ultrathin solar blankets means a best-of-both-worlds approach to satisfying the power needs of the thousands of satellites that will be launched in the next few years.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201dWe are thrilled to collaborate with DCUBED on this exciting project,\u201d said Stan Herasimenka, Solestial Co-Founder and CEO<\/strong>. \u201cOur silicon solar blankets provide a unique combination of affordability, flexibility, low specific mass and degradation rate that is unsurpassed in the marketplace. DCUBED has been an excellent partner, and we are eager to demonstrate the capabilities of both companies\u2019 technology.\u201d <\/p>\n The two companies, who are currently finalizing contractual arrangements, have already worked together to build a solar panel for a smallsat project that is scheduled to fly in early 2024. <\/p>\n Following the debut of the planned product at the SpaceTechExpo conference, both DCUBED and Solestial will begin discussions to identify early adopters and pilot customers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" DCUBED, the German NewSpace hardware manufacturer, and Solestial, the U.S. solar energy company for space, have announced a new solar array product designed to make space more affordable. The new product, a scaled demonstration that was shown at the Space Tech Expo trade show in Bremen, will marry the specialist technologies of both companies, using […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[26,20,73,62],"class_list":["post-7990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-ground","tag-satellite","tag-solar-cells","tag-solar-panels"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7990"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}