As commercial spaceflight heats up rapidly, the demand for orbital solar power is growing explosively. German space technology company Dcubed announced that it is advancing an on-orbit manufacturing system called ARAQYS, which plans to produce large-scale solar arrays directly in space "out of the box", with the goal of completing 2-kilowatt-class on-orbit verification and launching it to the market around 2027.
At present, except for a small number of military and scientific research satellites that use nuclear power, the vast majority of earth orbiting spacecraft rely on solar panels for power supply. The reason is that the orbital environment has no atmospheric and weather interference, and there is no alternation of day and night in the terrestrial sense. Continuous and stable solar radiation makes solar energy the most realistic source of electricity. However, traditional solar panels and supporting structures are heavy and must be folded during launch, which not only takes up valuable payload volume, but also requires a complex and reliable deployment mechanism to withstand the acceleration, vibration and strong noise during rocket launch. These factors will drive up costs and squeeze out available payload space and mass margin.
Dcubed hopes to use ARAQYS to bypass the traditional "folding and unfolding" solution and no longer lift the entire solar array from the ground. Instead, it will "build" the array directly on the track, thereby significantly reducing the cost per kilowatt. The design idea of this system is to first send a highly compact, flexible and ultra-thin "soft solar blanket" into orbit along with the satellite. The blanket surface itself assumes the photovoltaic collection function and is then deployed in orbit.
As the solar blanket slowly unfolds, ARAQYS's 3D printing system will simultaneously print a rigid back support structure along the film array, gradually "shaping" the flexible film into a large array with sufficient stiffness. The resin used for printing relies on strong ultraviolet rays in the space environment to quickly cure, without the need for additional large-scale curing equipment, thereby further reducing the emission quality and system complexity; a Dcubed spokesperson claimed that the overall cost is expected to be reduced by an order of magnitude.
According to the current plan, Dcubed will advance the on-orbit demonstration mission in stages: later this year, it will first launch a test mission to build a 60-centimeter-long arm segment, followed by a 1-meter-class version, with the ultimate goal of completing a complete verification system for 2-kilowatt-class on-orbit operation in 2027, and launching a product line for commercial procurement based on this. Once the technology matures, Dcubed expects that such solar arrays manufactured in orbit can be widely used on a variety of space platforms, including space power transmission and energy beam transmission arrays, orbital tugs, and large-scale data processing constellations.
Thomas Sinn, CEO of Dcubed, said that the company is committed to leading the new frontier of "orbital power generation". He himself participated in NASA's forward-looking research on space solar power stations 15 years ago and has already begun laying out relevant technology routes. He said that ARAQYS is the culmination of the company's technology accumulation in the field of space energy over the years, and its goal is to meet the growing demand for high-power electricity in the future with an affordable large-scale on-orbit power supply solution in the rapidly expanding space economy.