Solar battery frame made of pipes triangular cross-section

The vast majority of spacecraft use solar panels as their primary energy source. The widespread using of solar cells is due to the simplicity of the design, reliability, environmental safety and minimal impact on the electronics and radio elements of the spacecraft. The development of new, larger spacecraft is driven by increasing demands on their functionality. These requirements lead to the need to provide more and more payload capacity of the spacecraft, the growth of its mass. There are solar batteries with different types of substrate: flexible, semi-rigid and rigid. Many years of experience in the development and application of solar panels have led to the fact that domestic spacecraft in most designs use solar panels with a semi-rigid substrate consisting of pipes, fittings and strings. This design of the substrate has characteristics at the level of world analogues. The increase in the mass of the payload can be compensated by a decrease in the mass of the power supply system. Thus, to improve the mass-dimensional characteristics, it is possible to optimize the design of the main load-bearing elements-pipes, which implies a more efficient use of the material (reducing the margin of safety with constant rigidity of the frame). The paper presents the results of the study of the possibility of modernizing the structure of the frames of planar solar cells, increasing their mass-dimensional characteristics. The studies were carried out by computational and experimental methods, and experimental samples of pipes were manufactured and released. As a result of the work, a frame made of triangular pipes and fittings was developed, and the mass and mechanical characteristics of the frame were determined.