Yardney Technology Passes Mars Milestone

Yardney Technical Products Inc. of Pawcatuck, Connecticut, has completed three successful years of Mars Exploration Rover operations. There are two rovers operating on opposite sides of Mars, both powered by Lithion batteries, a product line of Yardney. Spirit landed January 3, 2004, and Opportunity landed January 24, 2004. There is currently no end in sight for the mission, which was originally expected to last only three months.

In 2001 NASA awarded Yardney a contract to develop the batteries that would power the two rovers, which were launched in 2003. Each rover has two batteries. They provide power at night when there is no sunlight for the solar panels to convert to electricity. They are also used during the day when the Rover is doing a task that requires more power than the solar panels can deliver. The batteries are redundant, so if one battery fails, the Rover can operate using the other, although no such failure has occurred so far throughout the missions.

“We know there’s no way to make a service call to Mars, so everything has to work properly from the start, and keep right on working without interruption,”says Vince Yevoli, president of Yardney.