also utilize solar panels. Another spacecraft of interest was Dawn which went into orbit around 4 Vesta in 2011. It used ion thrusters to get to Ceres. The potential for solar powered spacecraft beyond Jupiter has been studied. The International Space Station also uses solar arrays to power everything on the station. The 262,400 solar cells cover around of space. There are four sets of solar arrays that power the station and the fourth set of arrays were installed in March 2009. 240 kilowatts of electricity can be generated from these solar arrays. That comes to 120 kilowatts average system power, including 50% ISS time in Earth's shadow. Future uses For future missions, it is desirable to reduce solar array mass, and to increase the power generated per unit area. This will reduce overall spacecraft mass, and may make the operation of solar-powered spacecraft feasible at larger distances from the sun. Solar array mass could be reduced with thin-film photovoltaic cells, flexible blanket substrates, and composite support structures. Solar array efficiency could be improved by using new photovoltaic cell materials and solar concentrators that intensify the incident sunlight. Photovoltaic concentrator solar arrays for primary spacecraft power are devices which intensify the sunlight on the photovoltaics. This design uses a flat lens, called a Fresnel lens, which takes a large area of sunlight and concentrates it onto a smaller spot, allowing a smaller area of solar cell to be used. Solar concentrators put one of these lenses over every solar cell. This focuses light from the large concentrator area down to the smaller cell area. This allows the quantity of expensive solar cells to be reduced by the amount of concentration. Concentrators work best when there is a single source of light and the concentrator can be pointed right at it. This is ideal in space, where the Sun is a single light source. Solar cells are the most expensive part of solar arrays, and arrays are often a very expensive part of the spacecraft. This technology may allow costs to be cut significantly due to the utilization of less material. Gallery See also For solar arrays on the International Space Station, see ISS Solar Arrays or Electrical system of the International Space Station Ingenuity Mars 2020 helicopter runs on batteries powered by solar panels Nuclear power in space Photovoltaic system Solar cell Space-based solar power References Spacecraft components Solar power