ABSL Space Products Lithium-ion Powers Five Spacecraft Aboard NASA’s THEMIS Mission
17th February 2007
ABSL Space Products (formerly AEA Technology Space) extends its leadership of the Lithium-ion space battery industry with five more successful spacecraft launches powered by its hardware. At 18:01 EST on Saturday 17 February 07, a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket lifted off successfully placing the five satellites in the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) constellation into highly elliptical orbits.
THEMIS will provide answers to critical questions about the origin and phenomenology of solar and Earth magnetosphere interaction, the resultant electrical substorms, effects on space weather, disruptions in ground power grids, and communications. These affect the operation of other space satellites and the lives of humans in the sub-aurora regions on Earth.
The THEMIS batteries will interface directly with each satellite's electrical power and distribution subsystem, and will provide sufficient telemetry to assess the health and safety of the battery during ground testing and on-orbit operations.
Chris Pearson of ABSL Space Products commented:
THEMIS represents another important step in our Lithium-ion battery program. Not only is this our second NASA mission (after ST5) to be launched, THEMIS was also ABSL's first contract with Swales. We are proud that Swales are now a core customer having selected ABSL for a second, US Government, mission due to be launched later this year.
Mike Cully, Program Manager for THEMIS at Swales said:
We appreciated the job that ABSL did, qualifying and delivering a significant quantity of technically challenging hardware, to an aggressive schedule. THEMIS was our first foray into the relatively new battery chemistry of Lithium-ion. ABSL made that transition painless with excellent customer support.
ABSL is now the clear leader in the supply of Lithium-ion battery products for space applications with twenty five spacecraft now successfully launched and contracts for more than seventy satellites and launch vehicles. Batteries have ranged in size from less than 1kg to over 150Ah with even larger hardware awaiting launch. ABSL Lithium-ion has now clocked up over 3,800 cell years of space operation without failure and has received Lithium-ion space battery contracts from five separate NASA field centres.
Notes To Editors:
ABSL Space Products (formerly AEA Technology Space)
ABSL Space Products is a trading name of ABSL Power Solutions Limited, which is one of nine companies acquired by CIP Industries Incorporated LLP from AEA Technology plc in October 2005. This change offers ABSL Space Products a huge opportunity to grow and develop the business to achieve its ambitions.
ABSL Space Products is the world leader in the supply of Lithium-ion batteries for space applications with contracts for more than seventy spacecraft and launch vehicles. ABSL supplied the first rechargeable Lithium-ion battery flown in space and a total of twenty five spacecraft in orbit are now using ABSL Lithium-ion battery technology.
ABSL has built up a global customer base, winning major contracts from NASA, ESA, and major prime manufacturers in North America, Europe and the rest of the world.
ABSL has demonstrated in orbit the most reliable Lithium-ion product available for the space market by clocking up over 3800 cell years of space operation without failure.
ABSL has pioneered a battery design concept that is uniquely flexible. As well as being selected for very large space battery applications (such as the 400KWh unit for the NASA Space Shuttle), ABSL's "small-cell" concept has become the natural choice for many satellite applications.
ABSL has been active in the space industry since the 1960s during the early days of ion-thruster development. During the 1980s, ABSL was the largest non-US subcontractor to the United States Strategic Development Initiative (SDI). More recently, effort has been focused on its power and optical products, such as LIDAR and infrared calibration systems.
ABSL is working on the next generation of Lithium-ion technology to increase battery level energy density to over 150Wh/kg.
THEMIS
NASA's Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) aims to resolve one of the oldest mysteries in space physics, namely to determine what physical process in near-Earth space initiates the violent eruptions of the aurora that occur during substorms in the Earth's magnetosphere.
Event: Delta 2 rocket - THEMIS
Launch Date: 2/15/2007
Launch Time: Time: 6:07:37 - 6:26:37 PM EST
Location: Kennedy Space Center, FL
THEMIS is a 2-year mission consisting of 5 identical probes that will study the violent colorful eruptions of Auroras.
Understanding and predicting space weather is important to describe the environment in which spacecraft and astronauts operate and ensure their safety. Just as hail and tornadoes accompany the most severe thunderstorms, substorms accompany the most intense space storms - those that disrupt communications, cause power line transmission failures, and produce the most penetrating radiation. THEMIS will study substorms to gain insight into the most severe space storms.
Substorms occur when the magnetosphere suddenly releases vast amounts of stored solar wind energy. Substorms start from a small region in space but within minutes cover an immense region of the magnetosphere. Different possible triggers have different locations, so the key to solving this mystery is placing spacecraft in various locations in Earth's magnetic field to figure to help find the elusive substorm point of origin.
For the first time NASA will launch a constellation of five satellites to study substorms. The THEMIS probes will line up over North America once every four days. Over the mission's two-year lifetime, the probes should be able to observe some 30 substorms.
THEMIS is the fifth medium-class mission under NASA's Explorer Program, which was conceived to provide frequent flight opportunities for world-class scientific investigations from space within the Heliophysics and Astrophysics science areas. The Explorers Program Office at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., manages this NASA-funded mission. The University of California, Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory and Swales Aerospace, Beltsville, Md., built the THEMIS probes.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is located in a Maryland suburb outside of Washington, DC. It is NASA's largest Field Center and has scientists and engineers dedicated to learning and sharing their knowledge of the Earth, solar system, and Universe. The mission of the NASA GSFC is to expand knowledge of the Earth and its environment, the solar system and the universe through observations from space. NASA GSFC is committed to excellence in scientific investigation, in the development and operation of space systems and in the advancement of essential technologies.
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