SOLSTICE Broad Agency Announcement (BAA)

SOLSTICE Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) is a grant from IARPA that funds development of resilient, high-efficiency solar and hybrid solar power systems for deployment on space platforms serving U.S. Intelligence Community missions.

The SOLSTICE program (Superior Options for Long-life Solar Technologies with Impressive Conversion Efficiencies) is an 18-month effort targeting at least a 50% improvement in time-weighted system efficiency over current space power systems.

Teams must develop novel components, create system-level models and designs, and assemble first-of-a-kind prototype power systems capable of withstanding challenging space environments and human-created threats. Eligible applicants include research organizations, contractors, and academic institutions with relevant expertise in solar power systems, space hardware, and related engineering disciplines.

Superior Options for Long-life Solar Technologies with Impressive Conversion Efficiencies The SOLSTICE program aims to develop resilient and higher energy yielding power systems for space systems to help meet the U.S. Intelligence Community’s increasing need to power energy-intensive payloads for longer durations. Power systems on platforms deployed in space frequently limit the operation and scope of onboard payloads and capabilities.

Furthermore, challenging environmental conditions and human-created threats can diminish performance suddenly or over time, thereby risking mission objectives. Resilient and higher energy-yielding power systems will allow for greater freedom of operation along with the use of high-energy-consuming capabilities that were previously challenging or impossible to implement.

SOLSTICE will develop solar-power and hybrid solar-power systems, and associated components, that can be deployed in space to enable significantly higher mission lifetime energy yields than are possible today. The SOLSTICE program will be an 18-month effort to develop new power systems that target at least a 50% improvement in time-weighted system efficiency compared to current systems.

Teams will focus on proving-out novel components and develop system-level models and designs that leverage those components. Teams will assemble a first-of-a-kind prototype power system that will be assessed against a range of anticipated conditions. Teams will evidence the scalability of their power systems and perform failure analysis testing to inform a possible on-orbit demonstration.

The program goal is to demonstrate power systems with at least a 30% time-weighted system efficiency for the first year of operation in space and limited lifetime degradation. Testing and Evaluation Partners Johns Hopkins University - Applied Physics Laboratory NASA Jet Propusion Laboratory - California Institute of Technology Johns Hopkins University - Applied Physics Laboratory National Laboratory of the Rockies