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Passive Fuel Cell Surface Power System (PaCeSS)
NASA’s envisioned Lunar and Martian surface operations will require constant and reliable power systems. Traditional power architectures, including solar cells and batteries, cannot be solely relied upon due to the lengthy lunar nights and challenging thermal environments. How-ever, fuel cells, including primary fuel cells and regenerative fuel cells, represent a promising means for energy generation and storage on planetary and lunar surfaces. PaCeSS could further improve mission flexibility by significantly enhanc-ing reliability and longevity with fully passive fuel cell power generation capability. Test systems have been built to validate the performance characteristics of various PaCeSS technology elements, and many of the component materials have already been characterized. Some of these novel technology elements already demonstrated include a two-phase thermosyphon operation in fuel cell conditions, a passive shape memory actuator operation using two-phase water, and a shape memory alloy radiator turndown. Although the current design of the shape memory alloy actuated rad-iator system is dependent on partial gravity and space-like environments where heat rejection is performed primarily via radiation, there may be ways of using the same basic system for controlling fuel cell temper-ature via convective heat rejection for terrestrial applications. Addition-ally, other elements of this concept could be commercialized terrestri-ally, including the thermosyphon heat transport mechanism, a multi-purpose vapor chamber, and a thermal management system that uses water by-product as the thermal management medium. The Passive Fuel Cell Surface Power System is at a technology readiness level (TRL) 3 (analytical and experimental critical function and/or characteristic proof of concept) and is now available for patent licensing. Please note that NASA does not manufacture products itself for commercial sale.
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