SPACECRAFT POWER BUS REGULATION USING SOLAR PANEL POSITION

摘要

A spacecraft power bus regulation method and apparatus for a spacecraft. The spacecraft has solar arrays (10) and a battery (30) coupled to the spacecraft power bus (32) to drive electrical loads (34). A bus voltage limiter (38) controls the flow of current from the solar arrays while a bidirectional battery controller (36) controls power flow into and out of the battery. A processor (46) monitors current flow and battery condition using sensors (40, 42, 44, 48) and controls the bus voltage limiter accordingly. Auxiliary control is provided by the solar array drive (24) which controls the orientation of the solar arrays with respect to the sun.