The energy supplying system and battery control of the Sallesat-I has in charge providing the energy needed by all satellite subsystems. The Sallesat-I will use basically a divided system in two sections: Batteries, energy distribution unit and telemetry information (that will allow checking its state). This modular system provides a generic supplying system that could be easily reused in a future.
The first pass is understanding well the battery work, different types of batteries available in the market and, specially in this case, with the best compatibility with a difficult environment as it is the space. In order to understand all possible problems, our system is going to face in open space, we’ll study other picosatellites launched with plenty of success.
When you choose a battery for space applications, we have to take note of the special satellite characteristics. In our case we’ll have a picosatellite. That means we’ll have a big limitation on the battery we could include in it.
Due to the small size, it will be very important that batteries will produce as low hot as possible, in view that their placement in space do not allows enough refrigeration with dissipating surfaces that could not be large enough.
A great energetic efficiency is needed in order to reduce the solar panels size that are going to recharge the batteries and their very small size.
If we do not want to increase failure possibilitis, it will be very important that the system is as simple as possible, with redundant parts if small dimensions allow us to place into.
By the other hand, the orbit our satellite is going to fly will determine in a very important way the selection of our battery:
LEO ORBIT (Low Eath Orbit)
Orbit period: around 100 minutes
Eclipse: 30 to 40 minutes per revolution
Daily orbits: 12 to 16 per day, around 5.000 in a year
In consequence, the following requirements are to be observed:
- [A/h] Amper-hour capacity.
- If rechargeable.
- Discharge rate allowed.
- Useful life.
- Ambience temperature.
- Strength resistance and weight.
Satellite segment
