Martographers
Mars' leader in Global Positioning
"If you're on Mars, we'll find you!"
Power
Each satellite is expected to need 404W, and in order to obtain electrical energy, solar cells and onboard batteries are will be deployed. Solar energy on Mars is far reduced from that on Earth because of the vast difference in distance to the sun. We plan to compensate for this problem by using novel high efficiency solar panels with fairly large effective electromagnetic area.
Fig 1: Solar Panels
Solar panels will be positioned and actively controlled according to incident sunlight in order to produce more energy. The solar panels will be kept folded during launch and will be deployed after the launch vehicle has separated. The lowest radiation intensity on Mars' orbit is approximately 0.45 KW/m2. As a result, by using solar panels with efficiency of 25% and an effective electromagnetic area of 10 m2, more than 800 watts will be created taking into account the aging of solar panel surfaces [1]. This power is more than enough for our system to operate. When the spacecraft's view of sun is blocked, a novel lithium-ion battery, charged by solar panels, will be switched on.
[1] T.Pratt and E. Allnutt ,Satellite Communications. John Wiley&Sons, 2003.