European SPS

Interspersed.

Ian Woollard wrote:

>" Specifically, the product of the area of the antennas on the ground
>and on the SPS are a large constant"

Thanks I'll have to remember that.

>> For places like Europe why not build bigger antennas on the SPS, beam
>> down to a smaller rectenna footprint and you can lower the power in one
>> area by having several smaller rectenna's instead of one larger one
>> supplied by the one SPS.

>"Doing that would further multiply up the area needed on the satellite;
>unless you switched the power between the rectennas over time."

I don't particularly see that as a problem. To my way of thinking the US
and Europe are secondary or even tertiary markets.
As I see it the first markets to supply are China, India and large
amounts of Asia then moving on from there. By the time you get to Europe
you should have gotten to the point where you are either manufacturing
from space based resources (in which case size doesn't matter) or you
have enough lift capacity set up that a larger antenna isn't going to
cause any major headaches.

>> As for places too far north (or south) why not bounce the beams off a
>> relay satellite ?

>I think that keeping the relay satellite in a suitable position is as
>difficult as keeping the SPS in the same position, except that putting
>the SPS there would give less transmission loss.

That could be a problem. I suppose you could try a version of the LEO
study and set up a way to store the electricity between each pass.

Alternatively I wonder if having a number of relay satellites set up in
a lower orbit so that one would always be in range of the rectenna and
the SPS would work. Have the SPS switch focus of the beam from one to
the next as they go over the horizon. I guess it depends on how easily
you can aim the beam and just how bad the losses are at the relay satellite.

Brett.