Why bigger solar arrays get floppy and slow satellites down
From Football Field Size Solar Arrays That Fold Into a Rocket on Deeptech Decoded, with Pele Collins.
Transcript
Mm.
And as you said, more and more industries are moving to space and they all need power. And I think there is like, I just talked about like the data centers. Data centers can either be on earth and are using sort of earth generated power, water, all these other resources, or they can be put in, if that economy, that industry can be moved to space, they need to generate their own power. So they need giant solar arrays.
Mm.
So what we're, what we're seeing is like, had this idea of we want to build bigger. We want to build these huge things. And the most immediate need that we saw right now in talking to people across the space industry is the need for either. think there's two things really more power is definitely one, ⁓ where they just need bigger solar arrays. And I think the, from a technical standpoint, problem with just going bigger and bigger on the solar arrays is.
Mm.
If you imagine like a ruler or a stick, the longer it is, the more floppy it becomes. It literally is like, so the technical term is it's natural frequency mode. It is a very low first natural frequency mode, which means any sort of movement on the satellite, you can get resonance on the solar ray. So it basically limits how fast you can move the whole satellite. ⁓
Mm.
Mitch likes to say this thing where I think when people think of satellites in space, they think of like Star Wars and like things are like zipping around. But that's just like, that is just not how it works. Like things are moving very slowly in space. And almost always the speed at which a satellite can move is dictated by that first natural frequency mode.
you
So people want more power, but more power means you're more floppy, which means your first natural frequency motors means you can move, you have to move slower. And there's some things that don't necessarily want to move. Like a telecommunication satellite, sometimes it's pointing at the same spot on earth. So doesn't need to move around. But also as we're more more stuff up there, things need to move to avoid each other. We're like getting sort of satellite collision risks. And if you get bigger, you'll start bigger risks. So got to move around.
Mm. Mm.
