SBIR/STTR Research Award

Tritium Power Source for Small CubeSats

Award identifier 9268de7f688a64c464db7c231e54409f32f792e99111fc746fec696ad83d8403Awarding agency Department of Defense · Air Force

Award amount

$50,000

Program and phase

SBIR · Phase I

Award year

2020

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Award details

Awarding agency
Department of Defense
Branch
Air Force
Recipient company
CITY LABS, INC.
Proposal award date
2020-03-09
Contract end date
2020-06-09
UEI
LD55BB3D8EM7
Solicitation number
X20.1
Topic code
J201-CSO1

Research abstract

City Labs’ tritium power source, NanoTritiumTM P100 betavoltaic battery, provides continuous low power for decades.  The power solution was commercialized by City Labs over 8 years ago and has been purchased for memory backup, low power sensors, and research applications. The Model P100 has been tested by independent third parties to extreme temperatures of -55°C to 150°C. Chemical based batteries cannot operate on such a wide temperature range making the Model P100 unique among small power sources. Recently, the Air Force has been investigating solutions for powering CubeSats for defense application. These satellites can be as small as a cell phone and need a small power source that can handle wide temperature conditions. Unfortunately, solar cells are not sufficient for this Air Force requirement due to the relatively small size of these satellites and concomitant lack of attitude control for solar power harvesting, and temperature control for secondary batteries.  What is needed is a small, long-term, temperature independent, power solution.  The enhanced Model P100 will be a diminutive power source that can handle extreme temperatures while providing long-term, continuous power for an Air Force CubeSat.

Technology keywords

Not reported

Other awards by this recipient

Verified by the same UEI. These are other public SBIR/STTR award pages, not a merged company record.

Awards with the same topic code

Verified by an exact topic code match. This is not a text-similarity match.

Research funding history

15 SBIR/STTR records share this UEI (2018–2025). Reported award amounts total $14,514,384. Reported amounts are not federal obligations.

Phases: Phase II, Phase I, Phase II – Direct to Phase II

Agencies: Department of Defense, Department of Health and Human Services, National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Agency intelligence

Department of Defense

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