Microwave reflector parameters

Ooops, correction to the parameters.

According to this web link, which gives some more details:

http://www.univ-reunion.fr/~lcks/sps.pdf

The 260 metres is for a reference mission at 1,000 km altitude.

At GEO, the antenna is 1 km diameter. Actually for 2 - 8 GW that is not bad. Might still squeak in at less than US$1B.

How would be design/build such a reflector ?

I have an idea of stacked inflatable toruses of successively reducing diameters. The inflatable material would be UV hardened plastic.

CR.

<< What are the parameters for a passive microwave reflector ?

How do we build/deploy one at GEO ?

HEre is an interesting recent web link conerning the ANSA SPS "Fresh Look" study.

http://indigo.ie/~cumminsd/11%20-%20Industry.htm

The microwave parameters for the "sun tower" satellite design are:-

"The transmitter design consists of
0.5cm transmitting elements, having a total diameter of 260m,
and being approximately 0.5 1m thick."

"Each satellite is capable of
producing 250MW. The ground receiver for the Sun Tower
is a 4 km diameter site with direct feed into the power grid"

From thus I would infer that an optically equivalent passive reflector only needs to be 260 metres in diameter. This could be quite cheap to launch, it need only weighs a couple of tons.

Cost would be less than US$ 1 billion, perhaps as low as US$ 100 million, or the price of an average communications satellite.