AES Modular Power Systems (AMPS)

The AES Modular Power Systems (AMPS) project will demonstrate and infuse modular power electronics, batteries, fuel cells, and autonomous control for exploration ground system demonstrations; assess and provide recommendations for improvements of proposed power systems for other Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) projects/HEOMD demonstration systems; and develop modular power design concepts that will guide the ground system demonstrations and modular component and assembly development for the duration of this project.

The goals of this project are to develop modular power design systems and components for human exploration flight vehicles;  assess, develop, and/or improve power system designs for AES/HEOMD ground/flight demonstrations; demonstrate modular power design systems, by participating in annual ground demonstrations, infusing power technologies developed by the Space Technology Program Game Changing Development (GCD) Space Power Systems (SPS) project, Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR), and other government agencies as practicable; demonstrate and verify the operation of the modular power systems in a relevant, end-to-end, ground test environment; and develop modular power units which, when combined with standardized interfaces can provide commonality across a variety of exploration vehicles and guide AES ground system demonstrations. Specifically in FY8, with a focus on supporting deep space habitat power systems, the AMPS project will: Continue to develop and demonstrate performance and operation of modular power electronics hardware in a relevant, virtual, end-to-end ground based testbed environment for the AES Integrated project; Continue to develop a Power Systems Modular Standard which may be used by NASA and other space governmental agencies to improve power availability and reduce spare parts and incorporate it into a Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships-2 (NextSTEP-2) prototype habitat design; Continue to develop an autonomous control power system utilizing features which will allow the power system to operate in certain nominal or failure situations without ground or crew intervention; Continue a regenerative fuel cell study in coordination with the Mars Study Capability Team with a focus on applications for Lunar and Mars surface operations that evaluates available technologies and identifies an energy storage solution with commonality across multiple mission phases; and Support, in the power system area, the Habitat Integrated Projects Team and the NextSTEP BAA Habitat contractor activities as requested.