Lightweight Innovative Solar Array (LISA): Providing Higher Power to Small Spacecraft

Affordable and convenient access to electrical power is essential for all spacecraft and is a critical design driver for the next generation of smallsats, including cubesats, which are currently extremely power limited. The Lightweight Innovative Solar Array (LISA), a concept designed, prototyped, and tested at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama provides an affordable, lightweight, scalable, and easily manufactured approach for power generation in space. This flexible technology has many wide‐ranging applications from serving small satellites to providing abundant power to large spacecraft in GEO and beyond. By using very thin, ultra‐flexible solar arrays adhered to an inflatable structure, a large area (and thus large amount of power) can be folded and packaged into a relatively small volume. The LISA array comprises a launch‐stowed, orbit‐deployed structure on which lightweight photovoltaic devices and, potentially, transceiver elements are embedded. The system will provide a 2.5 to 5 fold increase in specific power generation (Watts/kilogram) coupled with a >2x enhancement of stowed volume (Watts/cubic‐meter) and a decrease in cost (dollars/Watt) when compared to state‐of‐the‐art solar arrays.