[ExI] Power satellites are being developed now

[John Clark]

On Sat, Dec 20, 2025 at 5:10 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:



> * > The larger a satellite is the sooner its orbit will decay, and a power
>> satellite would be very very large. Claude mentions that "A 1.4 GW
>> satellite design weighs 2,000 tonnes and measures 1.4 km in diameter"; that
>> would be considered a very small power satellite, but your calculator tells
>> me that if it was in a 500 km orbit it would decay in re-entry the
>> atmosphere and crash to the Earth in just 94 days. A 500 km orbit would be
>> fine for most satellites, but not for something as huge as a power
>> satellite.*
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> * I said "no lower than".  If you want to put it a bit higher, that's
> defensible, but 10,000 km for this purpose is excessive.  Even if we assume
> 1,960,000 m^2 (1,400 m, squared) - as in, a full square flying face-on into
> the atmosphere all the time (perhaps as part of optimizing to face the sun)
> - 2,000,000 kg at 750 km altitude's got an orbital endurance of over 20
> years (verify with the calculator if you wish), *
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*I picked 500 km because that was the highest orbit your calculator claims
to be accurate, it says "range: 180km - 500 km". For most satellites in any
orbit higher than 500 km it would be safe from orbital decay for decades if
not centuries, but not for something as enormous as a power satellite. *

*John K Clark*
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