Figure 7-15. Electrical power distribution. Characteristics of power conductors were driven from the requirement that a conductor must have sufficient surface area to dissipate the I2R power loss for a given surface temperature. Conductor weight can be decreased without increasing temperature if a larger surface area is provided. Therefore, the power conductors for the SPS were in the form of aluminum tubes on sheets. The penalty for reducing conductor mass is an increase in power loss, as shown in Figure 7-16. This power loss must be compensated for by increasing the size of the solar array and corresponding nonconductive structure. The resulting increase in array weight is included on the same figure. The curves represent one-half of the 792 module solar array.
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