NASA's Juno aircraft equipped with Cobham's battery unit arrives at destination
NewsJuly 11, 2016
PORTLAND, Ore. Cobham officials announced at this year's Nuclear Space Radiation Effects Conference (NSREC) that NASA?s Jupiter Near-polar Orbiter (Juno) spacecraft launched with the company's Battery Electronics Unit (BEU), providing a balance of power cells autonomously to a Lithium Ion (Li-Ion) battery. Juno arrived at its destination, Jupiter, after a five-year journey.
Jeff Hassannia, Senior Vice-President of Business Development and Technology for Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions says, “Cobham’s BEU provides autonomous, dissipative, and continuous cell balancing which helps to maximize available battery capacity, and therefore battery cycle life, throughout a spacecraft’s mission.”
Engineers designed the BEU to be redundant and can be configured with any battery size and voltage. It also has achieved NASA’s and Department of Defense Technology Readiness Level 9 (TRL 9). The spacecraft Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers program, which aims to improve understanding of the origin and evolution of Jupiter. It originally launched in August, 2011.
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