Robber Barons in Space

> First off, if I understand correctly, you want to
> state your business plan essentially on repairing
> solar panels on satellites on orbit.

Not exactly. The business plan is essentially founded on manufacture
of solar panels. We're not talking about anything new here. There
are many such companies. The objective of this one would be to "get
big", establish standards, and work towards repairing solar panels on
orbit.

> First off, with any business plan you first need to
> look at need and competition. In this case, this is
> very important.

Well, first, I think you need to have an idea. But, I see your
point. All good plans look at the competition.

> First the competition: DARPA has already given a phase
> 2 contract (to boeing i think) for the Orbital Express
> project which address this very issue and then some.

Excellent. Thanks, I'll explore this.

> Also on competition: there are actually numerous
> subsystem contractors that already provide
> space-qualified solar panels. Many of the interfaces
> into these are in fact standardized.

I expected that there would be people who already do this. I'm not
really presenting any new business. The new part is providing an
industry wide standard coupler. There must be an economic penalty
for not adopting the coupler. The coupler must be machine operable.
It must also be disconnectable. I'm not sure that the standard(s)
you mention above meet these criteria. Furthermore, you indicate
that "Many of the interfaces ... are standardized." Ummm, the
trouble with this kind of "standard" is that there are "many". I
suggest that a standard should be singular.

> Next need: Part of the Orbital Express mission was
> defining what in fact were the issues that caused
> satellites to end their life. The number one by a
> long shot was fuel needed for station keeping. This
> is most true in LEO constellation as alot of fuel is
> spent to battle the degrading orbits and is also true
> in GEO though less so. The second want was to be able
> to swap out payloads. Last was more bus related
> functions like power (which would include solar
> panels) and CPUs.

This is useful. It suggests a need for a standard refueling approach
rather than a standard solar panel replacement strategy. I suppose
that some large government controlled firm is already developing
this. That's great -- maybe. I'd rather see it privatized.

> On the launch costs, I really do not see a significant
> saving to launch panels seperately.

I think you might be slightly misunderstanding the model here. I'm
not talking about launching the panels separately. I'm talking about
not launching them at all. Step five indicates that the panels are
produced outside the gravity well.
The earlier part of the model talks about shipping replacement panels
separately. This would happen before the space manufacturing
facility is in place.

> reduce weight, I would concentrate more on material
> engineering (finding more lightweight stuff) and most

No, the ultimate goal is to justify space manufacturing and
non-terrestrial resource usage. The initial goal is to produce solar
panels.

> importantly, FUEL FUEL FUEL. Not only is alot of fuel
> needed for station keeping, it is also needed for
> orbit raising.

You're point is made here. Suppose the satellite were launched
without fuel (or with minimal fuel) and were fueled on orbit with
some low-tech fuel like, say, water. I'd like to know why this
wouldn't work.

> And on a last note, I know that U Mich and Caltech
> have both published studies on servicing satellites on
> orbit, you should be able to dig around and find those
> reports somewhere, as well as other university reports

Thanks for the tip. You've provided me with some great direction for
further research. Incidentally, I've done a Google search for
standard space solar panel interfaces and haven't had much luck.
Lots of stuff on Orbital Express. But, can you be a little more
specific about the interfaces?

Chris.