Solar Magazine – Meyer Berger and Solstial to produce solar cells for space travel

The solar cells that Meyer Berger and Solestial will produce together will leverage Meyer Berger’s manufacturing expertise to produce Solestial’s proprietary silicon photovoltaic technology on a large scale for applications in space.

intellectual property
Combining Meyer Burger’s heterojunction technology with Solestial’s space-focused silicon solar cells and module innovations should result in superior performance for spacecraft and space infrastructure projects.

Solestial’s strength lies in the company’s proprietary intellectual property for radiation-hardened solar cells and flexible solar modules, optimized for long-term performance in the harsh conditions of space. Under the collaboration agreement, Meyer Berger will source Solestial’s ultra-thin, radiation-hardened silicon wafers and apply its proprietary silicon heterojunction technology to them. The solar cells will then return to Solestial’s Tempe, Arizona, facility for solar cell mining, finishing and integration into flexible solar modules. The volume of wafers that Meyer Berger will process will enable Solestial to supply enough solar modules to power hundreds of spacecraft per year by mid-2025. Production is expected to begin on September 1 of this year.

Very wide range
“This partnership with Meyer Berger allows Solestial to take the next step in scaling up production and delivering products to our customers and meeting the ever-growing demand for reliable, cost-effective and abundant energy in space,” said Stan Herasymenka, CEO of Solestial.

“With the cost and scale of solar power available to space yesterday, our mission would be prohibitively expensive to implement,” concludes Saurav Shroff, managing director of Starpath, a technology company building industrial infrastructure in space. “Solestial’s solar technology is an enabler for Starpath and, we believe, for other next-generation space infrastructure providers. We are excited that Solestial is working with Meyer Burger to bring low-cost, space-ready solar power to the market at scale.”