Crowd watches ISRO’s PSLV-C37 launch. Photo: ISRO.

SolAero announced its products power 91 of the satellites deployed from ISRO’s record-breaking PSLV-C37 launch. This includes two satellites for which SolAero provided solar panels incorporating its Inverted Metamorphic Multi-junction (IMM) solar cell technology, which according to the company, offer 32 percent conversion efficiency and 30 percent lighter weight than conventional space solar cells. These missions represent the fourth space flight for the IMM solar cell technology, with several more planned to launch in 2017.

The 10 percent relative performance improvement and 30 percent reduction in mass of the IMM solar cell relative to conventional space solar cells present opportunities to redesign satellite solar arrays and reduce their total costs to manufacture and launch. According to SolAero, the performance of radiation-hardened IMM solar cells has been validated by multiple organizations in ground testing and on-orbit, which has accelerated its commercial adoption.