AEA Technology To Supply Lithium-Ion Battery For NASA Solar Science Spacecraft

ENERGY TECH

Illustration of the the Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft.

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Sep 05, 2005
Building on successful battery contracts with NASA Johnson Space Center and NASA Glenn Research Center, AEA Technology Space has been selected by NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center to supply the battery for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft.

The contract value is expected to be around $1.9 million.

The SDO is the first Space Weather Research Network mission in NASA's Living with a Star (LWS) program that is intended to enhance NASA's understanding of the solar process and space weather by characterising the sun's dynamic state.

AEA is already working with NASA to better understand how macroscale substorms are triggered in the Geospace by supplying batteries for the GSFC THEMIS programme through Swales Aerospace.

The AEA 120Ah Lithium-ion battery will provide power to the SDO spacecraft in Geostationary orbit (GEO) for a mission target duration of 10 years. Excess margin built into the battery design also suggests that the mission could be extended to 15 years.

It is widely expected that the attention paid to AEA by manufacturers of large GEO communication spacecraft, looking to upgrade their older battery technology to Lithium-ion, will be further heightened.

AEA supplied the first rechargeable Lithium-ion flown in space and now has a total of fourteen spacecraft that have now successfully employed (or continue to employ) AEA Lithium-ion battery technology. More than 1400 cell-years of space operation have been built up without a single failure.

Rob Spurrett, the Director of AEA Technology Space comments, "We greatly value our strong working relationship with NASA and are extremely proud to have been selected for this prestigious program. It is a strong endorsement that the high performance, safety and reliability of the small-cell approach can be scaled up from small to large satellite applications.

"AEA's track record, in particular the inroads we are making in the US Space market, has proven how our small cell solution consistently outperforms those of our competitors."

ENERGY TECH

Silicon Solution Could Lead To A Truly Long-Life Battery

Houston TX (SPX) May 11, 2005
Using some of the same manufacturing techniques that produce microchips, researchers have created a porous-silicon diode that may lead to improved betavoltaics.

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