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Propulsion & Power

ChipSat solar-battery system passes lab and balloon tests

By SpaceEnergy 22 August 2026 1 min read

(SpaceEnergy) Cornell University researchers have validated an updated ChipSat power system combining rechargeable batteries and body-mounted solar cells in laboratory tests and high-altitude balloon flights.

The work supports DeSCENT, a planned suborbital mission to deploy 100 ChipSats from Blue Origin’s New Shepard near 100km altitude.

The updated ChipSat architecture integrates rechargeable energy storage, body-mounted solar cells, Global Positioning System capability, sensing, onboard logging and 915MHz LoRa communications.

Researchers said laboratory testing and high-altitude balloon flights validated integrated power operation as well as long-range communications performance. Preliminary mechanical testing has also been completed ahead of the remaining deployment and flight-verification work.

The research was led by Cornell University with participation from 4Special Projects and was published through the Small Satellite Conference repository. The paper became available for download on 22 August.

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