2023 Volume 1 Article ID: 88
The integrated fuel cell, which was developed by Honda, was evaluated for the usage in spacecraft. The integrated fuel cell has a new structure that has electrical conductive sections to the horizontal direction along the electrolyte membrane to create higher voltage within a single cell1). The cooling mechanism was updated with use in outer space in mind, and a fuel cell stack that has continuous holes to allow layering for use in space was developed. The fuel cell stack for use in outer space was subjected to fundamental evaluation of mechanical, vacuum, radiational and low temperature tolerance. A prototype of the fuel cell system was also fabricated in order to confirm the property of redundancy, which could be a distinctive characteristic of the fuel cell stack for use in outer space. This report describes the results from the confirmation of tolerance using the fuel cell stack for use in outer space and presents an overview of the fuel cell system that was fabricated.
