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The lithium-ion secondary batteries have been widely used for the space programs, today. Among them, REIMEI was one of the first satellites using lithium-ion secondary battery. In 2005, the satellite was launched, and injected into the low earth polar orbit. Eleven years has passed since the launch and over 60,000 cycles of charge and discharge was experienced in space. The lithium-ion secondary cell of the REIMEI battery was designed using spinel manganese oxide type material for the positive electrode, and the graphitized type carbon for the negative electrode. The cell case was made of aluminium laminated film and the structure was reinforced by the epoxy resin and aluminium housing. After the operation of eleven years, the cells still maintain the appropriate uniform balance and operative. In order to identify the internal condition of the battery/cell, we calculated the ac impedance by the pulse duration to the on-board battery.

The satellite borne batteries should be composed by safe materials if we don’t want to have a risk of explosion caused by batteries. Therefore, we focused on two safe batteries. One is a lithium-ion battery with an ionic liquid electrolyte, and the other is a LiFePO4/C type lithium-ion battery. To check whether the batteries are suit for space applications or not, we demonstrate the ionic liquid type batteries and LiFePO4/C type battery in orbit by mounting on “Hodoyoshi-3” microsatellite, and test LiFePO4/C type cell on the ground at various conditions for a better understanding. On the ground tests, AC impedance and capacity of the cells were initially measured, and charge/discharge cycling was constantly repeated at 10, 23 and 45°C. The cells were discharged by constant current (CC) protocol to DOD 50% with 1.0 C for 30 minutes. They were then charged by a constant-current/constant voltage (CC-CV) protocol to 3.6 V for 65 minutes with 0.5 C. For capacity check, the cells were charged at 1.0 C in CC-CV mode until their charge current becomes 60 mA, and discharged at 1.0 C in CC mode to 2.0 V at 23°C. The AC impedance was measured by applying 100 mA of AC oscillation over the frequency range from 0.01 Hz to 10 kHz at SOC 50%. As a result, the decrease in the impedance for the charge transfer through the cycles was observed at each test condition. Furthermore, especially in over recommended charge condition at 10°C, cells that were charged and discharged at 1.1 A/1.1 A were led to internal short circuit. The results suggested that the negative electrode performed as a “lithium-ion excess” by cycles. We define “lithium-ion excess” that lithium-ion happens to stay inside the negative electrode without desorption after cells discharge.

Understanding the behavior of Li-ion cells during thermal runaway is critical to evaluate the safety of these energy storage devices under outstanding conditions. Li-ion cells possess a high energy density and are used to store and supply energy to many aerospace applications. Incidents related to the overheating or thermal runaway of these cells can cause catastrophic damages that could end up costly space missions; therefore, thermal studies of Li-ion cells are very important for ensuring safety and reliability of space missions. This work evaluates the thermal behavior of Li-ion cells before and after storage degradation at high temperature using accelerating rate calorimeter (ARC) equipment to analyze the thermal behavior of Li-ion cells under adiabatic conditions. Onset temperature points of self-heating and thermal runaway reactions are obtained. The onset points are used to identify non-self-heating, self-heating and thermal runaway regions as a function of state of charge. The results obtained can be useful to develop accurate thermo-electrochemical models of Li-ion cells.