URSI White Paper on Solar Power Satellite (SPS) Systems
ABSTRACT
A solar power satellite is a very large-area satellite in an appropriate orbit, which would function as an electric power plant in space. The satellite would consist of three main parts: a solar energy collector, to convert solar energy into dc electric power; a dc-to-microwave converter; and a large antenna array to beam the microwave power to the ground. For the production of 1 GW of dc power the solar collector would need to have an area of 10 km2, and would consist of either photovoltaic cells or solar thermal turbines. The dc-to-microwave converter could be realised as either a microwave tube system or as a semiconductor system, or as a combination of both.
Written by arjun on October 16th, 2008 with
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