Establishing suitability of standard multijunction solar cells for Mars Orbiter Mission

The solar panel which will be powering the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is expected to operate in LILT conditions - <; 0.4AM0 and -20°C. The standard multijunction solar cells and solar panels populated therewith have to be screened and qualified for these conditions. Experiments were conducted at solar cell and panel level for this qualification processes. This paper describes the LILT test performed on solar cells which reveal the absence of performance degradation in MJ solar cells for the MOM operating conditions.