Description
Course Description
This course is meant to provide an overview of spacecraft electrical power systems. Although many can benefit in numerous ways, the author intends the following goals.
- Provide a design Engineer with an overview of the requirements, sources of information, and design practices to enable efficient, first-time quality spacecraft electrical systems.
- Provide a practicing Engineer with the requisite knowledge to adequately review and analyze designs for compliance with a myriad of requirements.
- Provide an aerospace Electrician with a review of the latest updates and impacts to installation procedures along with potential pitfalls, difficulties, and errors.
- Provide the test Engineer with the adequate guidance to ensure thorough testing.
- Provide a list of applicable references for additional study or use at work.
This course discusses the function and operation of spacecraft lithium-ion battery based electrical power systems (EPS). Basic EPS functions such as energy generation, energy storage, power management, distribution, and control are described in terms of compliance to spacecraft power system requirements. Proper power distribution, including wiring and harness concerns, design constraints, protection and grounding are mentioned against the backdrop of mission-specific requirements. Battery overload and short-circuit protection are mentioned against the backdrop of mission and bus needs. Battery management systems used to monitor and manage lithium-ion battery state of operation in terms of cell voltage, load current for various mission scenarios are also discussed along with potential limits during discharge and charging—including the need for cell balancing.
Author: John A Camara, BS, MS, PE, TF
Course Number: 445
Course Hours: 5 PDH