International Space Station solar panels in 2021

The International Space Station solar panels seen in 2021 by ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet during his Alpha mission. Thomas commented on this photo:

"Goal 7 of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals is: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. There are great parallels to be made with the International Space Station. All our energy is completely carbon free as it comes from these beautiful, large, solar panels. They have been providing all the electricity we need up here for 20 years, but we have a great advantage: no clouds, so they get the full effect of our Sun. However half of our 90-minute orbit around is in the shadow of Earth, so batteries take over for 45 minutes to keep the electricity flowing, and they are recharged when we fly back into sunlight. As energy up here is a limited resource, a list exists where each facility is placed in order of priority. Representatives from the five space agencies that run the International Space Station work together to make the list so if ever power dips the top-priority facilities continue to run. I hear that the discussions around this can be quite lively as nobody wants their facility turned off, but for over 20 years researchers and mission designers have worked it out together and energy is continued to be produced and distributed. Like many things on the Space Station this is a nice example of what needs to be done on Earth, but obviously on a much larger scale and nobody is saying it is easy. Meanwhile after 20 years of service, the solar panels are getting ready for an upgrade with spacewalks planned to install new ones in the Summer. We need to safeguard our future energy to make it sustainable and continuous, just like on Earth."

Connect with Thomas via thomaspesquet.esa.int