High-Level Project Summary
For our project we designed an energy source and storage system for a Venus surface lander using in situ resources such as solar power and sulfuric acid from the clouds. We used the very reactive sulfuric acid to our advantage, manufacturing hydrogen on an aerial station which would charge its batteries above the clouds and descend to transfer it to the rover.For the energy storage system we propose a molten salt electrolyte battery, which has a high temperature range, with a strong aerogel insulation. In order to protect the battery from the extreme pressure, it has to be pressurised from the inside.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
Exploring Venus could prove very important. As it is very similar to Earth, scientists can learn much about our planet's evolution, and about other Earth-sized exoplanets. However, Venus has a very hostile and dangerous environment: high temperatures, pressures, and corrosive gases in its atmosphere. We designed an energy storage and source system that would withstand the conditions for 60 days or more on the planet's surface.
The energy source: We propose the use of solar power as the main energy source. Because little sunlight penetrates the thick carbon dioxide and sulphuric acid clouds, solar energy is absorbed above the clouds by a balloon-like aerial station which will then descend below the clouds and transmit energy via electromagnetic waves to the rover on the surface.
How the aerial station will move up and down: the atmosphere of Venus is abundant with sulphuric acid, which can be gathered using a high surface area mesh and decomposed to sulphur trioxide and water, which will vaporise naturally because of the high temperatures on Venus.. To ascend, the balloon is going to fill with water vapour from a cooler storage tank, and to descend, the water vapour is going to be stored by condensing it into liquid form.
The battery: a battery that would be most suitable for Venus conditions is one with a molten salt electrolyte, as it can withstand high temperatures, has a high energy and power density.
Precautions: in order to protect the system from Venus's high temperature, an insulation of aerogel is going to be used (has a very high melting point and low heat conductivity). Vacuum pockets can also be useful in insulation (heat doesn't transfer through vacuum) .
To prevent crunching under high pressure, the rover and balloon have to be made from hard material with high melting points such as steel. The electronics could also be pressurised from the inside (the pressurant gas could be transported as a liquid and vaporised by Venus's high temperatures).
With this system, we hope to achieve an energy storage and source design which will withstand Venus's severe conditions for more than sixty days to collect valuable information and data. For this system, we have taken inspiration from the VIP-INSPR project.
We designed our project on the website-designing platform Wix, and the demo on the presentation-designing platform Canva.
Space Agency Data
Information on energy storage technologies
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/549/energy-storage-technologies-for-future-planetary-science-missions/
Extract of article for Venus surface operation batteries
https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/pdf/10.2514/1.41886
Information about conditions of Venus
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/1519/venus-resources/?page=0&per_page=40&order=created_at+desc&search=&tags=Venus&category=324
Hackathon Journey
Space Apps Challenge is a great and unique way to collaborate and get scientific brainstorming experience. ``````We have learnt a lot about Venus, the planet and the history of its exploration. Such learning is a perfect way to visualise and project the future of the planet's study.
Our team decided to choose this challenge because we think that the future of space explorations lies in studying the closest to Earth planets, though they represent a huge scientific challenge due to hostile conditions.
Approaching this project we have made a thorough research of explorations already existing and then created our model, which is based on using resources, existing on the planet, and features elements of pre-existing systems we combined to design a long-duration Venus surface mission.
We would like to thank IMS, Limassol, for providing facilities for Space Apps Challenge and helping to organise the event in Limassol., and the mentors who gave us valuable advice.
References
Information about VIP-INSPR
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/niac_2016_phasei_bugga_vipinspr_tagged.pdf
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2019_Phase_I_Phase_II/Power_Beaming/
Information on power beaming
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/niac_2019_phi_brandon_powerbeaming_tagged.pdf
Battery diagrams
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Donald-Sadoway/publication/303713477/figure/fig18/AS:661122441043968@1534635281914/Schematic-of-liquid-metal-battery-in-the-discharge-and-charge-processes.png
https://news.mit.edu/sites/default/files/styles/news_article__image_gallery/public/images/201601/20151210_battery-molten-metals-figure-1.png?itok=Yivam93k
http://www.physics-and-radio-electronics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/batterysimplediagram.png
Information about aerogel
https://spinoff.nasa.gov/flexible-aerogel-insulation-antennas
Tags
#venus #energy source #energy storage #solar power