Lithium-Ion Battery test bench development for Aerospace Applications

Abstract

During a space mission, the satellite is supplied with required electrical power depending on each phase of the orbit or season, until its End-Of-Life. To maintain the mission, we should size well the battery-pack and proceed to the qualification and integration tests to cover the power budget fixed to the mission (Low Earth orbit-LEO, Geosynchronous Transfer orbit-GTO, Medium Earth orbit-MEO or Geostationary earth orbit-GEO). The development of the on-board energy power system (EPS) of satellite requires validation and qualification phases before opting for the modules to be integrated into aerospace flight subsystem. In this work we propose solution to cover the specific testing need of the electrical energy storage module of CubeSat, this by developing a test system emulator to get closer and closer to its orbit operating. The proposed system consists of a platform (Hardware / Software) allowing to the battery cells (Li-Ion, LiPo technologies) pre-selected for space mission to live the same constraints of the satellite in orbit through predefined and reconfigurable cycles or micro-cycles of charge/discharge, which can be looped until the end of satellite life (EOL). This work allows us to carry out batteries tests in a specific environment (controlled temperature) for a satellite mission, to perform endurance and characterization tests on Lith-Ion cells in order to qualify them for use in space systems.