500Wh battery pack for asteroid mining
AstroForge in the US has signed up Kulr to provide a space-qualified 500Wh battery pack and battery management system for its asteroid mining mission.
The Kulr ONE Space (K1S) battery pack uses established modules and a NASA JSC 20793-compliant architectures for the next AstroForge mission. This mission aims to send
The second mission, Odin, is already in space to capture high-res imagery of asteroid 2022 OB5, providing key data to prepare for the first extraction mission with the Vestri spacecraft. AstroForge has developed a low cost modular architecture
Vestri will have an increased mass of 200kg compared to Odin’s 120kg with electric propulsion instead of chemical propulsion and 1.7kW of power compared to Odin’s 180-190W. It will use similar avionics with improved wiring and harness design and adds landing legs for its primary mission to land on a metallic asteroid to measure platinum group metals on the surface
The pack is built using NASA-approved cells and validated under WI-37 screening processes to provide the maximum volumetric and gravimetric energy density. This is paired with KULR’s advanced Battery Management System to mee the functional, mechanical and interface requirements of the mission.
K1S is the first commercial-off-the-shelf lithium-ion battery series fully compliant with NASA safety standards and provides a scalable high-efficiency energy pack base don a range of cells.
“This iteration reflects the third design format of the Kulr ONE Space architecture and will focus on energy density and reliability,” said Dr. Will Walker, Chief Technology Officer of KULR Technology Group. “From compact CubeSats to complex resource extraction missions, our modular NASA-compliant designs provide the flexibility and performance our partners demand in a constantly evolving space landscape.”
“Kulr’s expertise in working with NASA-approved architectures and delivering a customized solution in record time was a game-changer for our program. Their ability to maximize energy density while meeting our exact specifications ensured we could stay on schedule without sacrificing safety or performance, key to achieving our mission objectives,” said Robyn Ringuette, Chief Operating Officer of AstroForge.
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