Title: Power Electronics for Space Applications: Challenges and Opportunities

Jinia Roy Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Thomas A. Lipo Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin Madison Associate Director, Wisconsin Electrical Machines and Power Electronics Consortium (WEMPEC), UW Madison, USA

Abstract:

Power electronics for space applications face unique challenges that demand innovative solutions. Unlike terrestrial systems, space imposes extreme constraints on mass, making lightweight designs critical due to the high cost of launch and deployment. Efficiency is equally vital, as limited energy resources must be utilized optimally, directly impacting thermal management requirements. Reliability is paramount because in-orbit repairs are impractical, necessitating architectures with inherent redundancy and fault tolerance. Furthermore, thermal management in a vacuum environment eliminates convective cooling, requiring advanced approaches such as two-phase cooling to handle heat dissipation effectively. Space radiation adds another layer of complexity, mandating radiation-hardened components to ensure operational integrity. Current architectures for applications like electric propulsion often rely on multiple conversion stages rated for peak power, resulting in poor specific power density and excessive passive component mass— capacitors and inductors alone account for over 70% of converter weight. Opportunities exist to improve system-level optimization, leverage wide-bandgap devices such as GaN for higher switching frequencies, and adopt advanced cooling strategies. This tutorial explores these challenges and highlights emerging technologies and design paradigms aimed at achieving high efficiency, low mass, and robust reliability for next-generation space power systems.


Brief Bio:

Jinia Roy is Thomas A. Lipo Assistant Professor at UW Madison and an Associate Director of Wisconsin Electric Machines and Power Electronics Consortium (WEMPEC). Before joining UW Madison, she was with GE Research, Niskayuna, NY and with the NREL, Golden, Colorado for 6 years. She has 14+ years of experience in the field of power electronics. Throughout her career she has worked on various government and business funded projects related to WBG based PV inverters, grid integration of renewable energy, pulsating power buffer, and pulsed power converter for medical, defense and fusion applications. She is currently leading a DoD funded effort on development of light weight high efficiency power management for space applications. She was the recipient of the 2019 IEEE PELS Prize Ph.D. Thesis Talk. She also was the recipient of the IEEE/PEDES’96 Award for the Best Thesis in Power Electronics from IIT Kanpur, 2013 and two Best Paper Presentation Awards at ‘IEEE IECON 2014’ and ‘APEC 2017’.