Jan 24 2011
EMCORE has declared that the company has been awarded a $10 million contract for manufacturing, testing and delivering solar panels for the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) by NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC).
The $10 million would be utilized in powering four separate MMS spacecraft with 32 solar panels and ZTJ Solar Cells. The ZTJ Solar cells has to its credit of being the highest performance space qualified and multi-junction solar cells in the market with a 30% sunlight-to-electricity conversion efficiency rate. EMCORE’s manufacturing facilities at Albuquerque in New Mexico would be producing the solar panels.
According to Christopher Larocca, EMCORE’s Chief Operating Officer, the NASA contract was a great award for the company. He mentioned that they had previously worked for NASA GSFC’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission by supplying solar panels for powering the spacecraft, which is currently orbiting the moon. This new contract would speed up EMCORE’s activities to be counted as the best supplier of solar panels for challenging spacecraft power systems.
EMCORE is a leading provider of Subsystems for fiber optic and solar power markets and compound semiconductor-based components. It is also a leading manufacturer of highly efficient solar cells for space power solutions. EMCORE’s multi-junction solar cells with a patented monolithic bypass diode and 30% Beginning-of-Life (BOL) conversion efficiency could power all earth orbiting satellites and interplanetary spacecrafts.
Source: http://www.emcore.com