Supercapacitors for Space Applications: Trends and Opportunities

article is an excerpt from ESA SPCD paper entitled “Supercapacitors for space applications: trends and opportunities” written by Géraldine Palissat, Leo Farhat from ESA ESTEC and Joaquín José Jiménez Carreira, HE Space presented during the 4th ESA SPCD conference at ESA ESTEC, The Netherlands 11-14th October 2022. Published under ESA SPCD organisation committee permission.

ABSTRACT

Electric Double-Layer Capacitors (EDLC), also known as supercapacitors or ultracapacitors, are being considered as an energy storage option in space applications because they can operate over wider temperature ranges and have longer lifetimes and higher power densities than batteries. Since almost a decade, supercapacitors (SCs) were identified as promising high-power sources as they can bridge the gap between capacitors and batteries. SCs have been found to be potentially attractive for several space power applications. ESA has conducted several activities for developing supercapacitors for space applications. The trends and the opportunities of using supercapacitors in space applications will be discussed.

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INTRODUCTION

The European Space agency (ESA) has been interested in the study of supercapacitors since the beginning of the 2000’s. Many activities have been released in order to study the benefits of supercapacitors in the energy storage systems of the spacecrafts and the launchers.

At the beginning, the strategy was to identify the applications for which the use of supercapacitors could bring benefit compared to other electrochemical energy storage technologies, in terms of performances. Once the most relevant applications have been identified, the second step of the strategy was to qualify in space environment, supercapacitor devices used in terrestrial applications, also known as Commercial-of-the-shelf (COTS), that have demonstrated interesting performances for space applications.

These COTS supercapacitors cells enabled to answer partially the high-power supply demands encountered in space applications as introduced in the following sections. Indeed, two factors enabled to explain that: the new requirements at supercapacitors part level in terms of power and energy densities.

Following the results obtained in the activity of space qualification of COTS supercapacitors, the third step of the strategy was to cover new requirements at supercapacitors devices level, with the main objective to design, develop and manufacture space qualified supercapacitors cells using innovative electrode materials that cope with the high-power demand not covered by the COTS supercapacitors nor by high power batteries and to replace obsolescent batteries technologies.

Since the early 2000’s, supercapacitors have been identified as interesting high-power sources. Indeed, supercapacitors have been identified as an adequate energy storage technology to ensure the peak power supply of several space applications ordered in function of their peak power requirements:

Several potential applications for telecommunications satellites, flight control and electric propulsion, have been identified in the past decades, with the main objective to use supercapacitors in order to optimise the overall mass and performances of the energy storage system, based on the promising peak power capabilities of these devices.

Some trends regarding each domain are listed below:

If supercapacitors could be relevant, in order to power supply, the high-power peak demand of each of the applications listed above, their high-power capability is not enough to embed the technology is space applications. Indeed, there are a lot of other key parameters to consider for the optimization of the electrical architectures and the energy storage systems of spacecrafts and launchers.

SUPERCAPACITORS FOR SPACE APPLICATIONS: THE HIGH-POWER CHARACTERISTICS ARE NOT ENOUGH TO MAKE THE DIFFERENCE

The studies on supercapacitors, funded by ESA in the 2010’s have shown interesting results with regards to the capabilities and limitations of COTS supercapacitors. In one of these studies, entitled « high power battery-supercapacitor study » in 2010, carried out by EADS Space Transportation, the demonstration that the high power characteristics of COTS supercapacitors are not enough to make the difference in order to ensure the power supply of the various electrical functions of a spacecraft and of launcher with an hybrid power system composed of COTS supercapacitors and secondary batteries has been performed [10].

Indeed, there are several key parameters to consider:

Finally, the results of the study have shown that the use of supercapacitors and/or of hybrid power sources instead of primary or secondary batteries could be particularly strategic for the following applications:

Indeed, the use of supercapacitors for space applications is still limited to some very specific applications. It’s mainly since in the meantime, the development and qualification of improved electrochemical storage devices such as lithium-ion batteries were achieved. The explanation for such differences in development between both technologies can be explained by the impact and the improvement of new technology on the spacecraft mainly in term of mass, cost, power, size, management for a given set of mission requirements: strong impacts and improvements were found for lithium batteries technologies and strong efforts were made by satellite equipment manufacturers to develop and qualify this technology.

Nevertheless, these main findings have paved the way to more than 10 years of research and development activities conducted by space industry in cooperation with supercapacitors manufacturers, under ESA funding.

SUPERCAPACITORS FOR SPACE APPLICATIONS: OPPORTUNITIES

These last years, with the growth market of the small spacecrafts, weighting between 100 kg and 200 kg, facing with constraints in the allowable on-board battery volume, new opportunities appear for the use of supercapacitors in space. Indeed, this volume constraint has an impact on the maximum power supply capability of small spacecrafts, which is generally limited in ranges between 70 W to 200 W. This relatively low maximum power limits the capabilities of small satellites in terms of payload design and selection. In order to enhance these satellites’ power performance, the implementation of supercapacitors as practical rechargeable energy storage medium, and as an alternative to chemical batteries is foreseen. Furthermore, as small spacecrafts programs are
deployed beyond Low-Earth Orbit (LEO), their energy storage system will have to operate at lower temperatures and under wider ranges of load capabilities.

The figure 1. hereafter presents the number of Small satellites by mass class, for the period 2012 – 2021.

Figure 1.: number of small satellites launched each year by mass class [14].

Many studies related to the use of supercapacitors in small satellites have been released these last years. The most interesting are listed hereafter:

CONCLUSIONS

The studies reported in this paper have demonstrated the successful use of supercapacitors, in the power supply and/or the hybrid power supply of several classical spacecrafts’ applications (high-power LIDAR, radars and high-power actuators) and of two functions of launchers (pyrotechnics and EMTVC).

Furthermore, the studies have shown the limitations and constraints related to the use of COTS supercapacitors. Indeed, enhancement of the performances of existing supercapacitors is an innovative field where new materials (VACNTs, graphene…) are going to play a determinant role in order to develop high-energy supercapacitors (> 15 Wh/kg) and hybrid supercapacitors (e.g Lithium Carbon capacitors with 50 Wh/kg energy density).

With the proliferation of small satellites in recent years, the use of COTS supercapacitors that have not been developed for space applications is of interest to the space community. The use of COTS supercapacitors is interesting in more than one way as shown in the paper.

Indeed, COTS supercapacitors have demonstrated their capability to be used: as the electrical power system of 1U CubeSat, as a payload power supply, as an electrical performances enhancer in a hybrid-power supply of small spacecraft.

Finally, innovative supercapacitors based on graphene could be an enabler for the small satellites market, enabling to propose improved and/or new services and extended life duration.

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