Comment by notahacker
2 days ago
You can use everything as a radiator, but you can't use everything as a radiator sufficiently efficient to cool hot chips to safe operating temperature, particularly not if that thing is a thin panel intentionally oriented to capture the sun's rays to convert them to energy. Sure, you can absolutely build a radiator in the shade of the panels (it's the most logical place), but it's going to involve extra mass.
You also want to orient those radiators at 90 degrees to the power panels, so that they don't send 50% of their radiation right back to the power panels.