1. Home
  2. Whitepapers
  3. Batteries Enabling Planetary and Deep Space Exploration

Batteries Enabling Planetary and Deep Space Exploration

Download Whitepaper
  • Author: Rob Gitzendanner, Frank Puglia, Richard Meehan
EaglePicher has a long history of supplying batteries and energy storage systems for launchers, satellites, rovers, landers and other space applications. EaglePicher has achieved over 2.8 billion hours of cell operations in space applications with no failures. This success ranges from the early Apollo missions, decades of nickel-hydrogen powered satellites, to highly successful planetary exploration missions. EaglePicher also has a legacy of lithium-ion cells and batteries in a range of space applications including GPS III, Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) Spirit, Opportunity and Perseverance (Exhibit 1), and the Juno mission exploring Jupiter at the greatest distance from Earth a lithium-ion system has traveled. All of these missions are supported with high reliability, high performance cells and batteries manufactured by EaglePicher. The performance, life, and power and energy density provided by these battery designs are truly mission enabling; delivering the energy storage solutions critical for mission success. After powering the MER rovers for over 14 years, supporting more than 25 orbits of Jupiter and preparing to recover material from the surface of asteroid Bennu, the batteries designed and developed for these missions have led to numerous scientific discoveries. The Mars Curiosity Rover team alone has generated over 400 publications to date. EaglePicher continues to drive new advancements in cell and battery designs, new electronics for power management and control, and new techniques for improved battery assembly and reliability. Future missions will benefit from these next generation enhancements including improved safety features for both manned and unmanned missions, managed arrays of commercial-off-the-shelf cells, and high energy rechargeable and nonrechargeable chemistries. This paper reviews these mission enabling technologies, enhancements in battery designs and performance, and current and future scientific explorations enabled by the technology
Please note: By downloading a white paper, the details of your profile might be shared with the creator of the content and you may be contacted by them directly.
Download Whitepaper

Space Missions - A list of all Space Missions

esa

Name Date
Altius 01 May, 2025
Hera 01 Oct, 2024
Arctic Weather Satellite 01 Jun, 2024
EarthCARE 29 May, 2024
Arctic Weather Satellite (AWS) 01 Mar, 2024
MTG Series 13 Dec, 2022
Eutelsat Quantum 30 Jul, 2021
Sentinel 6 21 Nov, 2020
OPS-SAT 18 Dec, 2019
Cheops 18 Dec, 2019
View all ESA Missions

isro

Name Date
INSAT-3DS 17 Feb, 2024
XPoSat 01 Jan, 2024
Aditya-L1 02 Sep, 2023
DS-SAR 30 Jul, 2023
Chandrayaan-3 14 Jul, 2023
NVS-01 29 May, 2023
TeLEOS-2 22 Apr, 2023
OneWeb India-2 26 Mar, 2023
EOS-07 10 Feb, 2023
EOS-06 26 Nov, 2022
View all ISRO Missions

jaxa

Name Date
VEP-4 17 Feb, 2024
TIRSAT 17 Feb, 2024
CE-SAT 1E 17 Feb, 2024
XRISM 07 Sep, 2023
SLIM 07 Sep, 2023
ALOS-3 07 Mar, 2023
ISTD-3 07 Oct, 2022
JDRS 1 29 Nov, 2020
HTV9 21 May, 2020
IGS-Optical 7 09 Feb, 2020
View all JAXA Missions

nasa

Name Date
NEO Surveyor 01 Jun, 2028
Libera 01 Dec, 2027
Artemis III 30 Sep, 2026
Artemis II 30 Sep, 2025
Europa Clipper 10 Oct, 2024
SpaceX CRS-29 09 Nov, 2023
Psyche 13 Oct, 2023
DSOC 13 Oct, 2023
Psyche Asteroid 05 Oct, 2023
Expedition 70 27 Sep, 2023
View all NASA Missions