NASA WI 037A Cell Screening

Quality screening of lithium-ion cells is essential for crewed vehicle applications, where safety, reliability, and performance are critical. In these environments, even minor defects or inconsistencies in battery cells can lead to catastrophic failures, posing serious risks to both the mission and crew. Rigorous screening processes help identify and eliminate cells with potential manufacturing defects, capacity inconsistencies, or internal short circuits that could lead to thermal runaway. 

NASA’s WI 037A cell screening process is a rigorous methodology designed to ensure the highest levels of safety and reliability for space missions. This process includes comprehensive electrical testing, assessing charge and discharge performance, capacity verification, impedance measurements, and anomaly detection. Additional screening steps ensure mass and dimensional consistencies and also identify visual defects and corrosion which could be indicative of impacting factors for an eventual thermal runaway event. This meticulous approach ensures that energy storage solutions meet the demanding requirements of crewed spaceflight, providing stable power delivery, enhanced durability, and fail-safe performance in extreme operational conditions.

Your organization can significantly mitigate potential failure risks by using batteries constructed with cells that meet NASA’s strictest flight certification requirements. These cells are ideal for space, aerospace, defense, and other mission-critical applications. Any pack constructed with these cells will have superior safety, performance, and longevity.