![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
major_clangerI used to fly satellites for a living. Yes, really. I was a shift leader at the mission control centre for Her Majesty's Communication Satellites, and used to sit in a windowless room full of monitors watching over five geostationary comms relays.
One of our tasks was to ensure the satellite's batteries were properly recharged. For two six-week periods each year, centered on the equinoxes, the satellites would enter the Earth's shadow for up to seventy minutes each night. During this time they ran on battery rather than solar power, provided by a large array of nickel-cadmium cells. Our job was to monitor power levels whilst the eclipse was in progress, and then to watch over the recharge of the batteries over the next few hours once sunlight was back on the solar arrays.
As you might have noticed if you have rechargeable batteries, NiCds get warm when you pump them full of power. Get them too warm and they risk exploding. This is very expensive if you do it on a satellite so we were very careful to ensure that we watched the temperature telemetry carefully. As a fallback though, the batteries had a 'thermal trip' that would disconnect power if they got above 25 degrees C.
Well, it got above 25C down here today, and I think my thermal trip has gone. My enthusiasm for getting on with various jobs (Unicon programme planning, SF Foundation admin, the ironing) has certainly suffered a serious short circuit.
Never mind. This is England. We will be cooler again soon.
MC
One of our tasks was to ensure the satellite's batteries were properly recharged. For two six-week periods each year, centered on the equinoxes, the satellites would enter the Earth's shadow for up to seventy minutes each night. During this time they ran on battery rather than solar power, provided by a large array of nickel-cadmium cells. Our job was to monitor power levels whilst the eclipse was in progress, and then to watch over the recharge of the batteries over the next few hours once sunlight was back on the solar arrays.
As you might have noticed if you have rechargeable batteries, NiCds get warm when you pump them full of power. Get them too warm and they risk exploding. This is very expensive if you do it on a satellite so we were very careful to ensure that we watched the temperature telemetry carefully. As a fallback though, the batteries had a 'thermal trip' that would disconnect power if they got above 25 degrees C.
Well, it got above 25C down here today, and I think my thermal trip has gone. My enthusiasm for getting on with various jobs (Unicon programme planning, SF Foundation admin, the ironing) has certainly suffered a serious short circuit.
Never mind. This is England. We will be cooler again soon.
MC
