| Batteries |
  |
|
 |
Batteries store energy made on Earth and release it as electricity. Chemical reactions inside the battery produces the electrons that will flow from the battery into the object it is powering. These electrons need to travel from the negative end to the positive end of the battery for the chemical reaction to take place, and this will only happen if a switch is hit so that a wire is connected between the opposite ends of the battery. This allows batteries to conserve energy for a long time, which makes them useful as a power source on a spacecraft, since a spacecraft usually stays in space for a long period of time.
Although batteries use up energy pretty quickly, they can be recharged by solar panels thousands of times. They serve as a really good backup energy source when the solar panels on a spacecraft are temporarily blocked from the sun. |
|
Main 