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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=PT link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Students build Supercapacitor battery for next ARISSat <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Penn State students have built a state-of-the-art supercapacitor battery for the next amateur radio ARISSat satellite.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>On Feb. 3, 2006, astronauts tossed an old spacesuit off the International Space Station. Inside was an amateur radio transmitter, a temperature sensor and some batteries.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>The suit was a DIY satellite. It circled the Earth twice, repeating a greeting recorded in multiple languages; ham radio operators listened in as it passed overhead. </span>Then the batteries died.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, or AMSAT, tried again in 2011. The battery in that satellite, a more traditional box design, also failed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>For the next model, AMSAT, a volunteer group, turned to the School of Engineering at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. Three students designed a brand-new battery: a 1.8 kg cube powered by 15 supercapacitors, each roughly the size of a film canister.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>The battery was built to handle 16 charge cycles in a 24-hour period. That will power the satellite in dark orbits, when the solar panels are not facing the sun.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>To activate the battery before those solar panels charge, the students – David Jesberger, of St. Marys; Kathleen Nicholas, of Pittsburgh; and Jacob Sherk, of Elizabethtown – added four 9-volt Duracells.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>AMSAT hopes to fit the satellite into a rocket payload and onto the International Space Station sometime in 2013. The astronauts won’t have to do much with it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>“It’s simple by design. They flip a switch, and they throw it out,” said Dakshina Murthy Bellur, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Penn State Behrend. He supervised the battery work, which counted as the students’ senior capstone project.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>All three students have since graduated. All three have jobs: Nicholas and Jesberger signed on with defense contractors, and Sherk works at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>They continue to track the AMSAT project. They want to know when their battery, upon which they laser-etched with their names and a Nittany Lion paw print, gets a launch date.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>“That’s going to be cool,” Jesberger said. “We’ll have our signatures in space.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Source Pennsylvania State University http://live.psu.edu/story/60125<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal>ARISSat <a href="http://www.arissat.org/">http://www.arissat.org/</a> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>