Boeing's Spectrolab to power NASA's telescope

SAN FRANCISCO, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Boeing announced on Tuesday that Spectrolab, Inc., its wholly-owned subsidiary, will manufacture, integrate and test approximately 4,000 XTJ Prime solar cells for NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

"Using Spectrolab's XTJ Prime solar cells, NASA will be able to maximize the Roman Space Telescope's power generation, allowing greater data gathering capability while operating in a unique mission environment at the L2 Lagrange point," said Tony Mueller, president of Spectrolab.

Spectrolab's NeXt Triple Junction (XTJ) Prime solar cells will provide power to the telescope, including its two main instruments - the Wide Field Instrument and the Coronagraph Instrument - as well as the primary mirror that is 2.4 meters in diameter (7.9 feet), and is the same size as the Hubble Space Telescope's primary mirror, the announcement said.

The solar array consists of six panels, each approximately 3m-by-2.5m and consists of 4,000 triple-junction solar cells. Triple junction solar cells leverage multiple bandgaps tuned to different wavelengths of the solar spectrum, allowing higher efficiencies not possible with commercially available silicon solar cell technology, according to the announcement.

Targeted to launch no later than May 2027, NASA's Roman Space Telescope will investigate long-standing astronomical mysteries, such as the force behind the universe's expansion, and search for distant planets beyond the solar system.