Product category: Batteries and Chargers
News Release from: Saft Lithium Battery Division | Subject: Lithium sulphur dioxide batteries
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 19 January 2006
Batteries provide crucial
power after seven years
With its safe return powered by Saft's lithium sulphur dioxide batteries, NASA's $212 million Stardust spacecraft and capsule has been orbiting in space for nearly seven years
With its safe return powered by Saft's lithium sulphur dioxide batteries, NASA's $212 million Stardust spacecraft and capsule has been orbiting in space for nearly seven years and is anxiously awaited back home. Last weekend the spacecraft released its sample return capsule, which re-entered the Earth's atmosphere with a safe landing in Utah.
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 19 January 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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The capsule carried particles collected by Stardust as it passed through the coma (the halo of particles around the head of the comet) of Comet Wild 2 in January 2004.
Stardust has now delivered to Earth the first samples ever collected from a comet.
The successful landing of the Stardust sample return capsule is due in part to the powerful Saft lithium sulphur dioxide batteries, which provided power to activate the mechanism that released the parachutes for landing.
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Then Saft's batteries powered the signal for beaconing in order for NASA to locate the probe out in the desert.
'It is an honour to contribute Saft battery technology to this successful mission and we are excited to see how this new data will further our understanding of how the solar system formed', said Saft America President and CEO, Dr Khushrow Press.
'What a tremendous accomplishment for the NASA space programme and for Saft'.
The Stardust mission was launched from Cape Canaveral in February 1999 atop a Delta 2 rocket.
Since then the spacecraft has flown 2.88 billion miles, circling the solar system three times and venturing farther from the sun (253 million miles) than any other solar-powered spacecraft.
Additionally, in the late winter and spring of 2000, and again in the late summer and autumn of 2002, Stardust opened its collector and scooped up particles of interstellar dust drifting through the solar system.
Saft's batteries were chosen for their unique performance, with minimal voltage delay - providing instantaneous power.
Only Saft batteries could meet the challenging performance requirements of the Stardust, not only in terms of voltage delay, but also in terms of the robustness of the battery mechanically to maintain power for nearly seven years and guarantee a safe landing for the probe and its invaluable data.
The Stardust probe had two Saft batteries comprised of four SO2 D cells to power the probe for the landing and then the communication phase of the project.
The lithium sulphur dioxide technology in these cells is of the same high performance used in many portable applications, such as the BA-5590 battery used to power military communications equipment.
'The contribution to the Stardust mission is an appropriate tribute to the Saft professionals who supported these missions in Cockeysville, Maryland, and at our manufacturing facility in Valdese, North Carolina', said Press. Request a free brochure from Saft Lithium Battery Division....
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