Damage evolution and electrical performance degradation of flexible solar arrays under hypervelocity impacts

The growing population of space debris has become a significant threat to the reliability and stability of solar arrays, as evidenced by multiple reported anomalies and failures associated with space debris impacts over the past decades. Compared with rigid panels, flexible solar arrays employ novel materials, devices, and structures, leading to distinct damage behaviors and degradation mechanisms under hypervelocity impacts. In this study, the damage evolution and electrical performance degradation of flexible solar arrays under hypervelocity impacts were investigated by combining numerical simulations and experimental studies. The developed semi-refined model effectively reproduced the damage evolution under different impact velocities and was validated by experiments, achieving RMSE and MRE values of 0.56 mm² and 2.01% for the simulated perforation areas, respectively. An in-situ measurement system was developed to characterize impact-induced plasma and electrical degradation. Under comparable impact conditions, the electron temperature and electron density of the impact-induced plasma generated by the flexible solar array were 32.6% and 69.7% lower, respectively, than the corresponding values for the rigid panel. The impact-induced power degradation mechanisms were further elucidated. Computed tomography revealed the mechanism of short-circuit failure caused by sub-millimeter debris impacts, and the Burt model indicated a higher short-circuit failure risk under oblique impacts than under normal impacts. These findings provide new insights into the multiscale space debris-induced damage mechanisms of flexible solar arrays and establish an evaluation framework for reliability assessment and fault diagnosis.