The thermosphere, ionosphere, mesosphere energetics and dynamics (TIMED) spacecraft power system

Author

Dakermanji, G. ; Butler, M. ; Carlsson, P.U. ; Temkin, D.

Author_Institution

Appl. Phys. Lab., Johns Hopkins Univ., Laurel, MD, USA

Volume

1

fYear

1997

fDate

27 Jul-1 Aug 1997

Firstpage

544

Abstract

The TIMED spacecraft is a three axis stabilized nadir pointing low Earth orbit scientific satellite with one side of the spacecraft always pointing away from the Sun. The instruments fields of view, pointing accuracy, jitter requirements, anti-sun pointing of one spacecraft side and sun angle variation during the year impose special demands on the power system design. The power subsystem selected to meet the mission requirements is a peak power tracking system with a single 50 Ahr 22 cell individual pressure vessel Ni-H₂ battery. Each battery cell is bypassed by a contactor. The two driven solar array wings are populated with 5.5 mil GaAs/Ge cells. The solar power generated by each wing has a sinusoidal shape

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; artificial satellites; elemental semiconductors; gallium arsenide; germanium; hydrogen; nickel; photovoltaic power systems; secondary cells; solar cell arrays; space vehicle power plants; 5.5 mil; GaAs-Ge; Ni-H₂; Ni-H₂ battery; TIMED spacecraft power system; individual pressure vessel; low Earth orbit; power system design; solar array wings; Batteries; Gallium arsenide; Instruments; Ionosphere; Jitter; Low earth orbit satellites; Power systems; Solar energy; Space vehicles; Sun;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Energy Conversion Engineering Conference, 1997. IECEC-97., Proceedings of the 32nd Intersociety

Conference_Location

Honolulu, HI

Print_ISBN

0-7803-4515-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IECEC.1997.659248

Filename

659248