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A comment on NASA Revives Plan to Put Nuclear Reactors on Mars. Parent comment

Re:NASA Revives Plan to Put Nuclear Reactors on Mars by Kubuxu on Wednesday July 05, 2017 @10:07AM (#14702464)
Space applications use single crystal GaAs (Gallium arsenide) process instead of wide spread c-Si (Crystalline silicon, currently usually multi-Si), due to their superior performance and weight.

Process of producing c-Si panels has become a lot cheaper but this doesn't apply to GaAs process.

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Re:NASA Revives Plan to Put Nuclear Reactors on Mars by philipkglass on Wednesday July 05, 2017 @02:31PM (#14704977)
The International Space Station's solar array is crystalline silicon:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/element...

Space applications are now mostly using triple-junction cells with GaAs as one of the layers. Spectrolab, Azur Space, and SolAero's product lines are dominated by triple-junction cells. Azur Space also still sells space-qualified silicon cells (lower efficiency and much lower radiation tolerance, but cheaper):

http://www.azurspace.com/images/pdfs/0002162-00-03_DB_SIA.pd...

The Martian radiation environment is mild enough that crystalline silicon might still be competitive if you needed large stationary arrays. But on the Martian surface, where you can't rely on near-constant sunlight, nuclear is going to be tough to beat. (Orbiters are a much better match with solar.)

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