History
This technology had the highest energy density prior to lithium technologies. Primarily developed for aircraft, they have long been used in space launchers and crewed spacecraft where their short cycle life is not a drawback. Non-rechargeable silver–zinc batteries powered the Saturn launch vehicles, the Apollo Lunar Module, lunar rover and life support backpack. The primary power sources for the command module were the hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells in the service module. They provided greater energy densities than any conventional battery, but peak power limitations required supplementation by silver–zinc batteries in the CM that also became its sole power supply during re-entry after separation of the service module. Only these batteries were recharged in flight. After the Apollo 13 near-disaster, an auxiliary silver–zinc battery was added to the service module as a backup to the fuel cells. The Apollo service modules used as crew ferries to the Skylab space station were powered by three silver–zinc batteries between undocking and SM jettison as the hydrogen and oxygen tanks could not store fuel cell reactants through the long stays at the station.
Read more about this topic: Silver-oxide Battery
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact; and anyone who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the “anticipation of Nature.””
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)