Apeiron 2021[Final]

keep the cost-effective methodologies in practice in attempts to avoid any loss under any
circumstance. This is essential to keep our ideals in practicality. Aperion is set to be a self-sustained
settlement. It is realistically attainable, the considerable utility of solar energy as a primary source, to
be reliant on for a period of time, till a combination of utility of several sources, to increase its
efficiency.
Solar Energy
Solar energy is a form of energy currently in use by the International Space Station (ISS). To get this
energy, photovoltaic panels have been efficient up till now. These cells are basically semiconductor
diodes writ infrared (IR) or ultraviolet (UV) radiations into electricity. To provide a whole settlement
with solar energy we will need more advanced and larger solar systems with way better photovoltaic
cells but given the rapid advancements in technology that will be manageable. The solar energy the
Earth receives is around 175,000 terawatts, however, due to reflection from the clouds and absorption
of light waves by the atmosphere, this amount is reduced substantially. In space however, this is a
completely different story as there is no atmosphere to cause these hindrances. For example, on the
moon a solar power system can capture hundreds of times the energy that system would capture on
the Earth. This shows us that solar power is indeed a very viable way to produce our energy.
Solar energy also has many other advantages, it does not produce any hazardous waste that needs to
be stored safely and monitored properly for hundreds of years and also has already a deep amount of
research gone into it. The ISS uses solar energy as well, they have eight wings each with around
33,000 solar cells on them.
A run down of how this works is that solar cells are made up of solar arrays which convert energy to
electricity on the space station. The solar cells are made of the material silicon from purified chunks.
These cells use a method called photovoltaics to directly transform light to electricity.
Photovoltaics is the conversion of light energy into electricity due to some materials having the
photoelectric effect. This is when they absorb photons of light and release electrons which can then
be captured to provide an electric current which can be used as electricity.
We will aim to fit the solar panels on the sides of our settlement. Solar panels need to be pivoted
towards the sun and our solar panels will be pivoted in such a way that they can always be pointing
towards the sun no matter which way the spacecraft is moving in. however there will also be an
option to move the solar panels out of the sun’s direction for when they are fully charged with electric
current or some maintenance is needed. For this there will be a positional tracking machine which
will follow the movements of the solar panels to ensure maximum efficiency from them. Relative to
the structure, we will fit two sets of solar arrays (2 solar arrays for each set) on the back of the
settlement as extensions which can be moved about using the aforementioned system. This will be
around 750 square metres in area for each set (this is taking into account only the pure area of the
solar panels). They will each contain around 79,000 solar cells and each set will produce a maximum
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