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Using a new fiber electrode technology, currently developed and produced by Bekaert Corporation (Bekaert), Electro Energy, Inc., (EEI) Mobile Energy Products Group (formerly, Eagle-Picher Technologies, LLC, Power Systems Department) in Colorado Springs, CO has demonstrated that it is feasible to manufacture flight weight nickel hydrogen cells having about twice the specific energy (80 vs. 40 watt-hr./kg) as state-of-the-art nickel hydrogen cells that are currently flown on geosynchronous communications satellites. Although lithium-ion battery technology has made large in-roads to replace the nickel alkaline technology (nickel-cadmium, nickel-metal hydride), the technology offered here competes with lithium-ion weight and offers alternatives not present in the lithium-ion chemistry such as: ability to undergo a continuous overcharge, reversal on discharge, and sustain rate capability sufficient to start automotive and aircraft engines at subzero temperatures.

Since the late 1980s Super NiCd™ Batteries have been used by Hughes Space and Communications, Co. (HSC), NASA, TRW, Lockheed Martin Space and Missiles Group, and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. In early flight programs with the technology, some capacity losses on long-term storage were experienced, but recently batteries with storage up to five years prior to launch are yielding within 2-3% of prestrorage capacity and are demonstrating managable performance in orbit.

Nickel alkaline batteries used in spacecraft electrical power subsystems are either nickel-cadium or nickel-hydrogen. The nickel-cadmium battery has been used since the beginning of the space program, while the nickel-hydrogen battery is a relative newcomer. Both couples are still used extensively, and recent advances in each have been documented. There are advantages and disadvantages in the use of either chemistry, but the nickel-hydrogen battery appears to be more attractive for longer life and higher specific energy for payloads greater than one kilowatt.