Procedures for cognitive and synergetic observation and proactive control of power capacity of nickel-hydrogen storage batteries onboard a geostationary spacecraft

Abstract

The paper presents methods of providing power resources for the mission of the Yamal-100 spacecraft from the secondary onboard power supply sources — nickel-hydrogen storage batteries. For the first time in the world practice of using metal-hydrogen electrochemical batteries installed in a common gas manifold a ~10-years operational life in orbit has been achieved for batteries operated onboard a geostationary satellite. A decline in power capacity of storage batteries could result in early termination of the spacecraft mission. Therefore, the energy resource of the storage battery was maintained through proactive management consisting of prediction and active control. The methods that were developed for continuous observation in the form of monitoring and diagnostics of the storage batteries status including estimation of the current discharge energy capacity made it possible to predict further degradation loss under conditions of insufficient power for the storage batteries cooling equipment. The active control consisted in using methods aimed at providing optimal operating conditions, fending off a potential development of an anomalous thermal situation within the electrochemical reaction zone, and regenerating the energy capacity. The control furthermore used the synergy effect produced by secondary energy interrelationships between onboard systems. This made it possible to meet the batteries operational life requirements under exposure to an unfavorable external factor in the form of an increasing heat impact on the batteries temperature control equipment. The increase in thermal load was caused by re-reflection of a portion of the luminous flux from structural elements of the spacecraft and an increase in solar absorption factor (aging) of thermal control coatings. Key words: spacecraft, control process, nickel-hydrogen battery, provision of resources, energy capacity, proactive control, synergy.