A battery developed by a QinetiQ-led consortium, including ABSL Space Products (ABSL), has successfully powered key, scientific payloads during the final stages of the Foton-M3 mission into space. Foton-M3 is a Russian unmanned spacecraft launched on September 14th from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It was A Soyuz-U rocket placed the spacecraft into orbit, with the recoverable spacecraft carrying a payload of more than 40 European Space Agency (ESA) experiments over the twelve-day mission. The battery supplied by the QinetiQ-led team was the sole power source during the re-entry, landing and recovery phases of the mission.
The battery consisted of two identical modules of 27 lithium sulphuryl chloride cells with sufficient stored energy to power the payloads for more than 12 hours. The stored energy ensured the successful retrieval of biological samples at the landing site by the ESA team and of the other experiments once they had been flown by helicopter to the Soyuz factory in the Russian city of Samara. Among the payloads supported by the battery were the Aquahab experiment (an aquatic habitat used to observe the effects of weightlessness on single cell organisms and fish), and Biobox (a payload consisting of two programmable incubators to study the effects of weightlessness on bone-forming cells and the damaging effects of space radiation on skin tissue).
QinetiQ and ABSL developed the 5.4 kWh battery over an eighteen month period. The two battery modules have a capacity 90 ampere-hours each, an energy density well in excess of 300Wh/kg and a voltage at beginning of discharge of 35 volts. QinetiQ was responsible for the overall management of the program, including the selection of the battery chemistry and cell size to ensure the battery survived the rigors of re-entry and landing when Foton-M3 experienced extremely high temperatures and g-force as high as 40g. ABSL conducted the majority of the physical assessment of the cells as well as battery pack design, assembly and qualification—Hampshire, United Kingdom
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