Spitzer's Solar Panel Assembly

Spitzer's Solar Panel Assembly is designed to provide the electrical power needed to operate Spitzer for up to 5 years. The Solar Panel Assembly is made up of two solar panels each of which has 392 solar cells. Each solar cell is 5.5 cm by 6.5 cm in area. Together, these cells will convert radiation from the Sun into a total of 427 Watts of electrical energy. Spitzer cannot point more than 120 degrees away from the sun. If it does, sunlight will not hit the solar panels properly.

The solar panel has 50 percent of its area covered with solar cells and 50 percent covered with optical solar reflectors. These reflectors reduce the solar panel temperature to about 330 K. The wedge shaped solar panel shield is angled away from the outer shell in order to improve its view factor to space and to improve the thermal isolation between it and the outer shell.

The Spitzer Space Telescope is a NASA mission managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This website is maintained by the Spitzer Science Center, located on the campus of the California Institute of Technology and part of NASA's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center.