[ExI] pentagon wants orbiting solar power stations

[Jordan Hazen]

On Sun, Oct 14, 2007 at 06:55:46PM -0400, Brent Neal wrote:
> 
> On Oct 13, 2007, at 14:52, David Masten wrote:
> 
> > But this raises an interesting question - what slots are these space
> > solar satellites going to occupy? Most of the useful slots (i.e. the
> > ones visible from industrialized nations) are already filled.
> 
> I'd guess they'd try to piggyback slots - i.e. replace communication  
> satellites with power satellites with communications relays on them.  
> Not like powering the relays would be a problem. :)

Many existing comsats already share orbital positions, some operating
on different frequency bands (C/Ku/Ka), others serving as on-orbit
spares.

To make stationkeeping less critical, members of these satellite
constellations are usually kept a few hundred km apart, which is only
a fraction of a degree's difference from the ground, close enough for
one antenna to "see" all of them at once.  Such a wide separation
might even be enough to squeeze in a large SPS collector.

 
> B
> 
> --
> Brent Neal
> http://brentn.freeshell.org
> <brentn at freeshell.org>

-- 
Jordan.