Survey and documentation of emerging technologies for the satellite power system (SPS)

The purpose of this study is to survey emerging technologies and new concepts which may offer advantages over those selected for the SPS Reference System. A brief historical overview of the genesis of the Solar Power Satellite (SPS) concept is presented leading to a discussion of the assumptions and guidelines which were originally established and which led to development of the SPS Reference System design concept. Some of these guidelines are applicable to almost any SPS design, but others could be changed, leading to new and perhaps preferable systems. Moreover, while some of the guidelines are based on solid data, some are little more than arbitrary assumptions which were adopted only to proceed with a concrete point design which then could be assessed in the DOE/NASA Concept Development and Evaluation Program. In order to stimulate new SPS concepts and to facilitate comparative assessment of emerging SPS technologies, one useful approach is to break the overall system into functional parts. The system functions which must be performed by any SPS concept and the interrelations between them are discussed and a systematic framework is presented for assessment of the wide variety of system concepts and subsystem technologies which have been proposed. Aboutmore » 80 alternative SPS technologies are reviewed.« less