I know the ARISSat team is busy with bird #1, but I'm just thinking about lessons we might learn for version 2. I think it is great that we are getting so much data about the battery. Assuming that there might be another satellite launched from the ISS, we will still have the same man-rating issues, and thus the battery might need to be the same Russian space suit battery. If that were true, what might we take away from #1 to help with #2? It was hoped that many shallow charge cycles might keep the battery running longer than the few deeps cycles that it is spec'ed for. Sounds like we got maybe 10 days out of it before it started to deteriorate.
What about another strategy? Suppose we did exactly what the battery was spec'ed for: Deep cycles. Let's say 333ma current draw and let's say that the battery is rated at 24Ah. So what if we only charged the battery every 3 days; maybe even turn off the transmitter while it charges. 5 cycles is 15 days. A bit better than this time. Maybe (also) we extend that 3 days between charges by only using the batteries in eclipse. This obviously requires additional electronics; in particular the battery can't be on the main power bus; we want to be able to isolate it to prevent it charging on every orbit. But that might be good anyway...the ability to isolate the battery might be desirable when the battery does die for good. Just thinking... Burns, W2BFJ _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
