Energy Solutions

Battery Power 1.1.1          Introduction All spacecraft that orbit the Earth need batteries during the eclipse periods, peak load periods, and during the initial launch operations. In the 1980’s the Hubble Telescope chose Lead-Acid batteries because of   their reliability and due to the fact other newer batteries technologies have not matured such as the Lithium, and Nickel Cadmium batteries that are used today in aircraft and spaceflight.    There are a wide variety of batteries used in space flight as shown below. Table 2 Battery types for spaceflight [29] The primary power supply batteries are considered not rechargeable, whereas the secondary battery is used to store energy such as Ni-Cd, and nickel-hydrogen batteries that have been used on the Galileo spacecraft [1] 1.1.2          Ni-Cd Battery  There are four main components of a Nickel-Cadmium   (NiCd) cell: ·          Negative plate made of cadmium