ESA Open Invitation to Tender: 1-10850
Open Date: 08/06/2021 11:37 CEST
Closing Date: 20/07/2021 13:00 CEST

Space energy storage is particularly sensitive to raw material obsolescence, as the Space industry represents a tiny market fraction in what is a rapidly evolving sector.Outside of purely technical challenges, the reliability requirements of space result in extremely long qualification timelines compared to other industry, which means innovation cycles in the space battery technology are significantly longer than terrestrial battery cells. Moreover, it appears not enough responsive and aggressive with respect to the „NewSpace” initiatives for constellations (time and cost).At cell level, the supplier usually define its first step evaluation in performing high Depth Of Discharge electrical cycling tests (about 5 months duration) in addition to long term electrical cycling test, about 2 years for a BOL evaluation and 7 years for a typical LEO mission.Due to the long test duration required before a cell is used for space application, there is a risk of raw material obsolescence by the time the cell evaluation is completed.From this, thereis a strong evidence that a new electrical test methodology is needed to quickly validate (couple of months) which cell raw material from the terrestrial market can be suitable for the use in space application, limiting the issue of raw material obsolescence, andalso to significantly reduce by 30% the overall duration of a battery cell evaluation.This activity encompasses the following tasks :- To analyze the current available life-tests data of Li-Ion cells used in space to select the reference case- To perform a physical/chemical analyses of existing data in order to understand the ageing factors and rates of cell degradation- To define a new electrical test methodology via analysis and experiments to shorten the test duration)- To validate the developed methodology by test and correlation with life-test heritage data

Directorate: Directorate of Tech, Eng. Quality
Estabilishment: ESTEC
ECOS Required: No
Classified: No
Price Range: 200-500 KEURO
Contracts Officer: Franziska Isabella Erkelens-Sickinger
Initiating Service: TEC-EPB
IP Measure: N/A
Prog. Reference: E/0901-01 – Technology Developme
Tender Type: Open Competition
Open To Tenderers From: AT+BE+CH+CZ+DE+DK+EE+EL+ES+FI+FR+GB+HU+IE+IT+LU+NL+NO+PL+PT+RO+SE
Technology Keywords: 3-C-I-Electro-Chemical Technologies for Energy Storage
Products Keywords: 2-J-7-Storage: Batteries