Solar Power Satellite 1

1.Abstract:

A solar power satellite as originally proposed would be a satellite built in high

Earth orbit that uses microwave power transmission to beam solar power to a very large
antenna on Earth. Space-based solar power (SBSP) is a theoretical design for the
collection of solar power in space, for use on Earth. SBSP differs from the usual method
of solar power collection in that the solar panels used to collect the energy would reside
on a satellite in orbit, often referred to as a solar power satellite (SPS), rather than on
Earth's surface
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Introduction:

An artist's depiction of a solar satellite, which could send energy wirelessly to a

space vessel or planetary surface.

A solar power satellite, or SPS or Powersat, as originally proposed would be a

satellite built in high Earth orbit that uses microwave power transmission to beam solar
power to a very large antenna on Earth. Advantages of placing the solar collectors in
space include the unobstructed view of the Sun, unaffected by the day/night cycle,
weather, or seasons. It is a renewable energy source, zero emission, and generates no
waste. However, the costs of construction are very high, and SPS will not be able to
compete with conventional sources (at current energy prices) unless at least one of the
following conditions is met.

Low launch costs can be achieved

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A space-based manufacturing industry develops that is capable of building solar

power satellites in orbit, using off-Earth materials.

In common with other types of renewable energy such a system could have advantages to
the world in terms of energy security via reduction in levels of conflict, military
spending, loss of life, and avoiding future conflict over dwindling energy sources.

An artist's concept of a solar power satellite, 1976. (NASA)

The SPS concept was first described in November 1968. At first it was regarded
as impractical due to the lack of a workable method of sending power collected down to
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the Earth's surface. This changed in 1973 when Peter Glaser was granted U.S. patent
number 3,781,647 for his method of transmitting power over long distances (eg, from an
SPS to the Earth's surface) using microwaves from a, perhaps square kilometer, antenna
on the satellite to a much larger one on the ground, which came to be known as a
rectenna.

Glaser then worked at Arthur D. Little, Inc., as a vice-president. NASA became

interested and signed a contract with ADL to lead four other companies in a broader
study in 1974. They found that, while the concept had several major problems -- chiefly
the expense of putting the required materials in orbit and the lack of experience on
projects of this scale in space, it showed enough promise to merit further investigation
and research.

Description:
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The SPS essentially consists of three parts:

• a solar collector, typically made up of solar cells

• a microwave antenna on the satellite, aimed at Earth
• one or more paired, and much larger, antennas (rectennas) on the Earth's surface

Spacecraft design:

In many ways, the SPS is a simpler conceptual design than most power generation
systems previously proposed. The simple aspects include the physical structure required
to hold the SPS together and to align it orthogonally to the Sun. This will be considerably
lighter than any similar structure on Earth since it will be in a zero-g, vacuum
environment and will not need to support itself against a gravity field and needs no
protection from terrestrial wind or weather.
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Solar photons will be converted to electricity aboard the SPS spacecraft, and that
electricity will be fed to an array of Klystron tubes which will generate the microwave
beam.

Solar energy conversion (solar photons to DC current):

Two basic methods of converting photons to electricity have been studied,

• Solar dynamic (SD) and

• Photovoltaic (PV).

SD uses a heat engine to drive a piston or a turbine which connects to a generator or

dynamo. Two heat cycles for solar dynamic are thought to be reasonable for this: the
Brayton cycle or the Stirling cycle. Terrestrial solar dynamic systems typically use a large
reflector to focus sunlight to a high concentration to achieve a high temperature so the
heat engine can operate at high thermodynamic efficiencies; an SPS implementation is
expected to be similar.

PV uses semiconductor cells (e.g., silicon or gallium arsenide) to directly convert

sunlight photons into voltage via a quantum mechanical mechanism. These are
commonly known as “solar cells”, and will likely be rather different from the glass panel
protected solar cell panels familiar to many and in current terrestrial use. They will, for
reasons of weight, probably be built in membrane form, not suitable to terrestrial use
which is subject to considerable gravitational loading.

Comparison of PV versus SD:

The main problems with PV are that PV cells continue to be relatively expensive,
and require a relatively large area to be acceptable. In addition, being semiconductors, the
PV panels will require a reasonably large amount of energy to produce.
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SD is a more mature technology, having been in widespread use in many contexts

for centuries. But, SD has a much more severe pointing requirement than PV because
most proposed designs require accurate and stable optical focus. If a PV array drifts off a
few degrees, the power being produced will drop a few percent. But, if an SD array drifts
off a few degrees, the power produced will drop off very quickly to zero, or near to it.

Currently, PV cells weigh between 0.5kg/kW and 10kg/kW depending on design.

SD designs also vary but most seem to be heavier per kW produced than PV cells and
thus this pushes up launch costs.

Lifetime:

The lifetime of a PV based SPS is limited mainly by the ionizing radiation from
the radiation belts and the Sun. Without some method of protection, this is likely to cause
the cells to continuously degrade by about a percent or two per year. Deterioration is
likely to be more rapid during periods of high exposure to energetic protons from solar
particle events[. If some practical protection can be designed, this also might be reducible.

Lifetimes for SD based SPS designs will be limited by structural and mechanical
considerations, such as micrometeorite impact, metal fatigue of turbine blades, wear of
sliding surfaces (although this might be avoidable by hydrostatic bearings or magnetic
bearings), degradation or loss of lubricants and working fluids in vacuum, from loss of
structural integrity leading to impaired optical focus amongst components, and from
temperature extreme effects. As well, most mirror surfaces will degrade from both
radiation and particle impact, but such mirrors can be designed simply (and so light and
cheap), so replacement may be practical.

In either case, another advantage of the SPS design is that waste heat developed at
collection points is re-radiated back into space, instead of warming the adjacent local
biosphere as with conventional sources; thus thermal efficiency will not be in itself an
important design parameter except insofar as it affects the power/weight ratio via
operational efficiency and hence pushes up launch costs. (For example SD may require
larger radiators when operating at a lower efficiency). Earth based power handling
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systems must always be carefully designed, for both economic and purely engineering
reasons, with operational thermal efficiency in mind.

Energy payback:

Clearly for a system (including manufacture, launch and deployment) to provide

net power it must repay the energy needed to construct it. For current silicon PV panels
the energy needs are relatively high and typically several years of deployment in a
terrestrial environment are needed to recover this energy. With SPS net energy received
on the ground is higher (more or less necessarily so, for the system to be worth
deploying), so this energy payback period would be somewhat reduced; however SD,
being made of conventional materials, are more similar to conventional powerstations
and are likely to be less energy intensive and would be expected to give quicker energy
break even, depending on construction technology.

Wireless power transmission to the Earth:

Wireless power transmission was early proposed to transfer energy from

collection to the Earth's surface. The power could be transmitted as either microwave or
laser radiation at a variety of frequencies depending on system design. Whatever choice
is made, the transmitting radiation would have to be non-ionizing to avoid potential
disturbances either ecologically or biologically if it is to reach the Earth's surface. This
established an upper bound for the frequency used, as energy per photon, and so the
ability to cause ionization, increases with frequency. Ionization of biological materials
doesn't begin until ultraviolet or higher frequencies so most radio frequencies will be
acceptable for this.

William C. Brown demonstrated in 1964 on CBS news with Walter Cronkite, a

microwave-powered model helicopter that received all the power needed for flight from a
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microwave beam. Between 1969 and 1975 Bill Brown was technical director of a JPL
Raytheon program that beamed 30 kW over a distance of 1 mile at 84% efficiency.

As well, to minimize the sizes of the antennas used, the wavelength should be small (and
frequency correspondingly high) since antenna efficiency increases as antenna size
increases. But, higher radio frequencies are typically more absorbed in the atmosphere
than lower radio frequencies.

For these reasons, 2.45 GHz has been proposed as being a reasonable
compromise. However, that frequency results in large antenna sizes at the GEO distance.
A loitering stratospheric airship has been proposed to receive higher frequencies (or even
laser beams), converting them to something like 2.45 GHz for retransmission to the
ground. The proposal has not been as carefully evaluated for engineering plausibility as
other aspects of SPS design.

Spacecraft sizing:

The sizing will be dominated by the distance from Earth to geostationary orbit
(22,300 miles, 35,700 km), the chosen wavelength of the microwaves, and the laws of
physics, specifically the Rayleigh Criterion or Diffraction limit, used in standard RF
(Radio Frequency) antenna design.

For best efficiency, the satellite antenna should be circular and about 1 kilometers
in diameter or larger; the ground antenna (rectenna) should be elliptical and around 14
kilometers by 10 kilometers. Smaller antennas would result in increased losses to
diffraction/sidelobes. For the desired (23mW/cm²) microwave intensity these antennas
could transfer between 5 and 10 gigawatts of power. To be most cost effective, the
system needs to operate at maximum capacity. And, to collect and convert that much
power, the satellite would need between 50 and 100 square kilometers of collector area
(if readily available ~14% efficient monocrystalline silicon solar cells were deployed).
State of the art (currently, quite expensive, triple junction gallium arsenide) solar cells
with a maximum efficiency of 40.7% could reduce the necessary collector area by two
thirds, but would not necessarily give overall lower costs. In either case, the SPS's
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structure would be kilometers wide, making it larger than most man-made structures here
on Earth. While almost certainly not beyond current engineering capabilities, building
structures of this size in orbit has not yet been attempted.

Earth based infrastructure:

The Earth-based receiver antenna (or rectenna) is a critical part of the original
SPS concept. It would probably consist of many short dipole antennas, connected via
diodes. Microwaves broadcast from the SPS will be received in the dipoles with about
85% efficiency. With a conventional microwave antenna, the reception efficiency is still
better, but the cost and complexity is also considerably greater, almost certainly
prohibitively so. Rectennas would be multiple kilometers across. Crops and farm animals
may be raised underneath a rectenna, as the thin wires used for support and for the
dipoles will only slightly reduce sunlight, so such a rectenna would not be as expensive in
terms of land use as might be supposed.

Advantages of an SPS:

The SPS concept is attractive because space has several major advantages over
the Earth's surface for the collection of solar power. There is no air in space, so the
collecting surfaces would receive much more intense sunlight, unaffected by weather. In
geostationary orbit, an SPS would be illuminated over 99% of the time. The SPS would
be in Earth's shadow on only a few days at the spring and fall equinoxes; and even then
for a maximum of 75 minutes late at night when power demands are at their lowest. This
allows the power generation system to avoid the expensive storage facilities (eg, lakes
behind dams, oil storage tanks, etc) necessary in many Earth-based power generation
systems. Additionally, an SPS will avoid entirely the polluting consequences of fossil
fuel systems, the ecological problems resulting from many renewable or low impact
power generation systems (eg, dams).
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More long-term, the potential amount of power production is enormous. If power

stations can be placed outside Earth orbit, the upper limit is vastly higher still. In the
extreme, such arrangements are called Dyson spheres.

Problems:

Problems are:-

• Launch costs
• Safety
• Defending solar power satellites

Launch costs:

Much of the material launched need not be delivered to its eventual orbit
immediately, which raises the possibility, that high efficiency (but slower) engines could
move SPS material from LEO to GEO at acceptable cost. Examples include ion thrusters
or nuclear propulsion. They might even be designed to be reusable.

Safety

The use of microwave transmission of power has been the most controversial
issue in considering any SPS design, but any thought that anything which strays into the
beam's path will be incinerated is an extreme misconception. Consider that quite similar
microwave relay beams have long been in use by telecommunications companies world
wide without such problems.

The microwave beam intensity at ground level in the center of the beam would be
designed and physically built into the system; simply, the transmitter would be too far
away and too small to be able to increase the intensity to unsafe "death ray" levels, even
in principle.
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In addition, a design constraint is that the microwave beam must not be so intense
as to injure wildlife, particularly birds. Experiments with deliberate microwave
irradiation at reasonable levels have failed to show negative effects even over multiple
generations.

Defending solar power satellites

Solar power satellites would normally be at a high orbit that is difficult to reach,
and hence attack.

However, it has been suggested that a large enough quantity of granular material
placed in a retrograde orbit at the geostationary altitude could theoretically completely
destroy these kinds of system and render that orbit useless for generations.

Whether this is a realistic attack scenario is arguable, and in any case at the
present time there is only a small list of countries with the necessary launch capability to
do this, such an attack would probably be considered an act of war, and conventional
power generators are more easily attacked.

SPS's economic feasibility

SPS’s economic feasibility are

• Current energy price landscape

• Comparison with fossil fuels
• Comparison with nuclear power (fission)
• Comparison with nuclear fusion
• Comparison with terrestrial solar power
• Comparison with Other Renewables (wind, tidal, hydro, geothermal)

Current energy price landscape

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In order to be competitive on a purely economic level, an SPS must cost no more

than existing supplies (Such costs must include the costs of cleaning waste from
construction, operation and dismantling of the generating systems--including lifestyle and
health costs.. Currently(2007) most Earth-based power generation does not include these
costs. The cost figures below are undated, but are obsolete as of 2007. This greatly
reduces the prices paid for power currently reducing the apparent benefits of SPS'.) This
may be difficult, especially if it is deployed for North America, where energy costs have
been relatively low. It must cost less to deploy, or operate for a very long period of time,
or offer other advantages. Many proponents have suggested that the lifetime is effectively
infinite, but normal maintenance and replacement of less durable components makes this
unlikely. Satellites do not, in our now-extensive experience, last forever. (But with
regular maintenance there is no reason that a high orbit satellite has to 'die.' Currently
(2007) the majority of such satellites--weather and communications, fail due to
correctable maintenance issues which we do not correct because we have no repair
people on site. Common failures are: running out of station keeping fuel or dead
batteries-no longer holding a charge. Neither of these failure modes is much of a problem
if service is available. With available refueling and battery replacement, the life of a
satellite can be greatly increased. Structural components, which make up the largest
percentage of mass, seldom fail. Nearly all of the other components can be modularized
for easy replacement/upgrade.)

Comparison with fossil fuels:

The relatively low price of energy today is entirely dominated by the low cost of
carbon based fossil fuels (eg, petroleum, coal and natural gas).

There are several problems with existing energy delivery systems. They are
subject to political instability for various reasons in various locations -- so that there are
large hidden costs in maintaining military or other presence so as to continue supplies
depletion (some well regarded estimates suggest that oil and gas reserves have been in net
decline for some time and that price increases and supply decreases are inevitable),
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greenhouse pollution -- all fossil fuel combustion emits enormous quantities of carbon
dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas, contributing to global warming and climate change.

Comparison with nuclear power (fission);

Detailed analyses of the problems with nuclear power specifically (nuclear

fission) are published elsewhere. Some are given below, with some comparative
comments: nuclear proliferation -- not a problem with SPS disposal and storage of
radioactive waste -- not a problem with SPS preventing fissile material from being
obtained by terrorists or their sponsors -- not a problem with SPS public perception of
danger -- problem with both SPS and nuclear power consequences of major accident,
e.g., Chernobyl -- effectively zero with SPS, save on launch (during construction or for
maintenance)military and police cost of protecting the public and loss of democratic
freedoms -- control of SPS would be a power/influence center, perhaps sufficient to
translate into political power. However, this has not yet happened in the developed world
with nuclear power.

On balance, SPS avoids nearly all of the problems with current nuclear power
schemes, and does not have larger problems in any respect, although public perception of
microwave power transfer (ie, in the beams produced by an SPS and received on Earth)
dangers could become an issue.

Comparison with nuclear fusion

Nuclear fusion is a process used in thermonuclear bombs (e.g., the H-bomb).

Projected nuclear fusion power plants would not be explosive, and will likely be
inherently failsafe. However, sustained nuclear fusion generators have only just been
demonstrated experimentally, despite well funded research over a period of several
decades (since approximately 1952). There is still no credible estimate of how long it will
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be before a nuclear fusion reactor could become commercially possible; fusion research
continues to receive substantial funding by many nations. For example, the ITER facility
currently under construction will cost €10 billion. There has been much criticism of the
value of continued funding of fusion research. Proponents have successfully argued in
favor of ITER funding.

By contrast, SPS does not require any fundamental engineering breakthroughs,

has already been extensively reviewed from an engineering feasibility perspective over
some decades, and needs only incremental improvements of existing technology to be
deployed. Despite these advantages, SPS has received minimal research funding to date.

Comparison with terrestrial solar power

Let us consider a ground-based solar power system versus an SPS generating an

equivalent amount of power.

Such a system would require a very large solar array built in a well-sunlit area, the
Sahara Desert for instance. An SPS requires much less ground area per kilowatt (approx
1/5th). There is no such area in the UK.

The rectenna on the ground is much larger than the area of the orbiting solar
panels. A ground-only solar array would have the advantage, compared to a GEO
(Geosynchronous orbit) solar array, of costing considerably less to construct and
requiring no significant technological advances. A small version of such a ground based
array has recently been completed by General Electric in Portugal.

Weather conditions would also interfere with power collection, and will cause
wear and tear on solar collectors which will be avoided in Earth orbit; for instance,
sandstorms cause devastating damage to human structures via, for example, abrasion of
surfaces as well as mechanically large wind forces causing direct physical damage.
Terrestrial systems are also more vulnerable to terrorism than an SPS's rectenna since
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they are more expensive, complex, intolerant of partial damage, and harder to
repair/replace. Wear and tear on orbital installations will be of very different character,
for quite different reasons, and can be reduced by care in design and fabrication. Long
experience with terrestrial installations shows that there is substantial, inescapable
maintenance for any economically feasible electrical installation.

Remote tropical location of an extensive photovoltaic generator is a somewhat

artificial scenario, as photovoltaic costs continue to decline. Deployment of ground-based
photovoltaics can be distributed (say to rooftops), but nevertheless, the required acreage
(at any credible solar cell efficiency) will remain very large, and maintenance cost and
effort will increase substantially compared to a large centralized design. In any case,
dispersed installation is not possible for some terrestrial solar collectors.

Both SPS and ground-based solar power could be used to produce chemical fuels for
transportation and storage, as in the proposed hydrogen economy. Or they could both be
used to run an energy storage scheme (such as pumping water uphill at a hydropower
generation station).

Many advances in solar cell efficiency (eg, improved construction techniques)

that make an SPS more economically feasible might make a ground-based system more
economic as well. Also, many SPS designs assume the framework will be built with
automated machinery supplied with raw materials, typically aluminium. Such a system
could be (more or less easily) adapted for operation on Earth, no launching required.
However, Earth-based construction already has access to inexpensive human labor that
would not be available in space, so such construction techniques would have to be
extremely competitive to be significant on Earth.

Comparison with Other Renewables (wind, tidal, hydro geothermal)

Other renewable energy sources (e.g., wind energy, tidal energy, hydro-electric,
geothermal, ethanol), have the capacity to supply only a tiny fraction of the global energy
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requirement, now or in the foreseeable future. For most, the limitation is geography as
there simply are very few sites in the world where generating systems can be built, and
for hydro-electric projects in particular, there are few sites still open. For 2005, in the US,
hydro-electric power accounted for 6.5% of electricity generation, and other renewables
2.3%. The U.S. Govt. Energy Information Administration projects that in 2030 hydro-
power will decline to 3.4% and other renewables will increase to 2.9%.

Ocean-based wind power is one possibility (there being large areas for potential
installations), but it is strongly affected by two factors; the difficulty of long distance
power transmission as many regions of high demand are not near the sea, and be the very
large difficulty of coping with corrosion, contamination, and survivability problems faced
by all seaborne installations.

Ethanol power production depends on farming in the case of corn or sugar cane
origin ethanol, currently the two leading sources. There is insufficient farming capacity
for both significant energy production and food production. Corn prices have risen
substantially in 2006 and 2007, partly as a result of nascent ethanol production demand.
Ethanol from cellulose (eg, agricultural waste or purpose collected non-cultivated plants,
eg, switchgrass) is not practicable as of 2007, though pilot plants are indevelopment.
Processing improvements (eg, a breakthrough in enzyme processing) may change this
relative disadvantage.

Current work:
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For the past several years there has been no line item for SPS in neither the NASA
nor DOE budgets, a minimal level of research has been sustained through small NASA
discretionary budget accounts. NASA's "Fresh Look" study in 2000--NASA (Japan's
national space agency) has been researching in this area steadily for the last few years. In
2001 plans were announced to perform additional research and prototyping by launching
an experimental satellite of capacity between 10 kilowatts and 1 megawatt of power.

The National Space Society (a non-profit NGO) maintains a web page where the latest
SPS related references are posted and kept current.

In May 2007 a workshop was held at MIT in the U.S.A. to review the current
state of the market and technology.

In 2007 the U.S. Department of Defense expressed interest in studying the

concept. On 10/10/2007 The National Security Space Office of the US Department of
[71]
Defense, published an assessment report . The report was released at a press
conference which simultaneously announced the formation of the Space Solar Alliance
for Future Energy which intends to pursue the recommendations of the NSSO-Led Study.

Conclusion:

In order to sustain today’s competition and to implement a disturbance less

communication all over the world, solar power satellite play a vital role. Even though it
requires a lot of money to implement but the final product is durable, more efficient and
of course since it is based on solar power which is non-exhaustive and hence does not
require any external power source.

Reference:

http://www.google.com

http://www.wikipedia.com
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