The NASA fuel cell upgrade program for the Space Shuttle Orbiter
- NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, OH (United States)
- NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX (United States). Propulsion and Power Div.
- Jet Propulsion Lab., Pasadena, CA (United States)
As part of NASA`s overall efforts to improve the Space Shuttle operations, a program to upgrade the existing fuel cell powerplant has begun. The upgrade will involve replacing the alkaline fuel cell (AFC) system with a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell system, resulting in a much lower life cycle cost of the powerplant. The program is being implemented by a team comprised of NASA/JSC, NASA/LeRC, and JPL personnel, with support from NASA/KSC. With extremely high annual maintenance costs and subsystem replacement costs, the need for a lower cost Orbiter fuel cell powerplant is obvious. Earlier NASA plant to upgrade the shuttle fuel cell were not adequately funded and only focused upon upgrading the existing AFC. For the current program, the PEM fuel cell system will be implemented because the projected long life (10,000 hrs. vs. 2,000 hrs. for AFC), high power density (PEM projected to produce 50% more power), and enhanced system reliability and safety all lead to significantly lower life cycle powerplant costs. And in addition to the Orbiter application, PEM fuel cell development would support a number of important space applications that the AFC would not, such as Lunar/Mars transportation, the Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV), Space Station emergency power and/or future energy storage applications, and various portable applications. NASA is also leveraging all of the large scale PEM fuel cell development activities that are ongoing for DOE, DOD, and commercial applications. There is no activity in the AFC area. The Shuttle Fuel Cell Upgrade plan of the JSC/LeRC/JPL team includes the following key elements: (1) Systems Analyses to assure compatibility/maximum utilization by shuttle of the best PEM fuel cell characteristics; (2) Short Stack Testing of the leading PEM fuel cell contractors` hardware; (3) Detailed Task Objective (DTO) Flight Experiment to verify PEM system water management and thermal management under zero-g operation; (4) A Downselect to the best PEM system; and (5) Development of the Flight Hardware Powerplant system, including, of course both the power and accessory subsystems. The planned success-oriented, four year effort is a coherent program to develop a 20 kW PEM fuel cell powerplant. The current major program tasks under way are Short Stack Testing and Systems Analyses.
- OSTI ID:
- 347754
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-970701-; TRN: IM9923%%292
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 32. intersociety energy conversion engineering conference, Honolulu, HI (United States), 27 Jul - 2 Aug 1997; Other Information: PBD: [1997]; Related Information: Is Part Of Proceedings of the thirty-second intersociety energy conversion engineering conference. Volume 1: Aerospace power systems and technologies; PB: 787 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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