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Eagle-Picher Battery Technology on 2001 Mars Odyssey Spacecraft

May 31, 2001 by Jeff Shepard

Eagle-Picher Technologies LLC (EPT, Joplin, MO) announced that its battery technology was featured on NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft, launched from Cape Canaveral aboard a Delta II launch vehicle on April 7, 2001. The spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems (Bethesda, MD), in partnership with NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, Pasadena, CA).

EPT reports that its power subsystems group combined two types of cells to build a nickel-hydrogen battery configuration for the program. The 16Ah battery design contains 11 two-cell common pressure vessel cells and one independent pressure vessel to achieve the 23-cell equivalent. The battery’s function is to reserve power for spacecraft operation, utilized approximately one-third of the time, when solar arrays become eclipsed.

“EPT is proud to be a significant supplier to the NASA Space Program. We have been a continuous source of battery power throughout four decades of space flight missions,” said Ron Repplinger, director of the power subsystems group at EPT.