Hanergy’s Alta Devices Powers ThinSats on Latest Launch from NASA Wallops Flight Facility

-Alta Devices’ flexible gallium arsenide solar cells power the ThinSat Design

-The solar cells provide a new level of mechanical and design flexibility for the small satellite industry

Beijing: The world’s largest thin-film power solution company, Hanergy Thin Film Power Group (00566.hk), today announced that its US-based subsidiary Alta Devices’ gallium arsenide solar cells are powering 60 small satellites, called ThinSats on a recent launch from NASA Wallops Flight Facility. Powered by Alta Devices’ most efficient gallium arsenide solar cells, these small satellites will launch on the NG-11 mission from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on the Cygnus cargo spacecraft. ThinSats will carry various electromagnetic, radiation, and inertial sensors for scientific analysis of the atmosphere.

ThinSats are part of a program whose goal is to set a new standard for STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics) education in the US. Dozens of teams of high school and college students were engaged in the preparation of the satellite hardware and analysis. The satellites will be deployed into low earth orbit and allow live data transmission. In the future, these ThinSats can be deployed into constellations and expanded to larger sizes for hosting larger payloads.

The ThinSat Program is managed and funded by Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (Virginia Space) with Twiggs Space Lab (TSL) operating as the general contractor, NearSpace Launch (NSL) the primary spacecraft designer and manufacturer, and Alta Devices the provider of solar cells.

Hank Voss co-founder of NSL states, “Satellites need solar cells to generate electrical power. Until now, no commercial solar technologies could match the improvement in cost, weight, and ease of use that other components of small satellite technology have achieved.”

“The majority of solar cells were expensive, fragile, rigid, and difficult to encapsulate and robustly attach to spacecraft,” Voss specifically pointed out.

Alta Devices solar cells overcome these challenges for the reason that they are flexible, easy to encapsulate and mount, and provide high power conversion efficiencies.

Commenting on the achievement, Mr. Jian Ding, CEO of Alta Devices said, “We’re excited that our flexible gallium arsenide solar cells are powering the ThinSat Design on this launch. At Alta Devices, we’re empowering autonomy, as our cells provide a new level of mechanical and design flexibility for the small satellite industry.”

Alta Devices cells can be mounted to low-mass deployable structures including coiled carbon fiber booms, flat-packed, polymer-based accordion arrays, even inflatable structures, allowing creative design approaches to maximizing onboard solar power.

Earlier in November 2018, Alta Devices’ solar modules were chosen by NASA for international space station testing, to evaluate Alta’s technology for future NASA low-Earth orbit missions, including powering CubeSats.

In 2014, Alta Devices, a California-based company, was acquired by Chinas Hanergy Group and became a subsidiary of Hanergy. Extremely efficient, light, and flexible, Alta Devices thin-film solar technology has been successfully applied to a wide range of different products and can be easily integrated into unmanned aircraft without altering their aerodynamic profiles.

About Hanergy Thin Film Power Group Ltd:

Hanergy Thin Film Power Group Ltd (0566.HK) is a Hong Kong-listed company, and a subsidiary of Hanergy Mobile Energy Group Company Ltd. As one of the leading thin-film solar companies in the world, Hanergy Thin Film Power Group Ltd is committed to “Building Mobile Energy”. Since 2009, Hanergy has been working relentlessly to integrate worldwide solar technologies, and making a robust investment in research and innovation in the field of thin-film solar power. Thin film solar technologies have been applied to a series of commercial and non-commercial products, including HanTile, HanWall, Humbrella, HanPack and HanPower.