At the 2002 ICES, FAVORITE, the orbital flight experiment for a fixed alkaline electrolyte (FAE) electrolyser stack was presented. The planning at that time was to fly the experiment in September 2003 on board the Space-Hab mission STS-118 with the space shuttle COLUMBIA flight ISS-13A.1.
Due to the tragic accident of COLUMBIA on Feb. 1st, 2003, these plans became obsolete and alternative launch opportunities were looked for. They were finally found with the unmanned Russian FOTON-M2, which is built by TsSKB-PROGRESS in Samara, Russia and scheduled for launch from the Baikonur cosmodrome in April 2005.
Because of the switch from a manned to an unmanned mission and other operational constraints, FAVORITE had to be redesigned in several parts.
This paper summarizes the objectives of the flight experiment and describes the required design changes. It also presents an overview of the actual development status as well as of the work ahead.