The Discovery Channel (which my kids LOVE and we LOVE them watching it!) will show a documentary on Space-Based Solar Power at 10pm on 12 September, 2008. We filmed it in Washington DC at the Space Frontier Foundation’s New$pace 2008 conference (you are a member, aren’t you?). It was so totally cool working with the pros from the Futures Channel who did the filming (they must work closely with the Discovery Channel). It was amazing watching them do their thing.  They turned a small conference room at the hotel into a studio, wired us up, created mood lighting, and all that Hollywood stuff. These guys were entirely professional and WOW, it was entirely motivational being around professional media people who want to tell a story so kids get excited!

So, here is the preview from our most excellent friends at the Futures Channel:

Space-Based Solar Power on the Futures Channel

Make sure you tune-in to the Discovery Channel when it airs. Record it, and share it with all your friends, consistent with the laws in your viewing area*!

Cheers!

Coyote

* We’ve got to be careful with copyright laws…I once got into a kerfuffel because I described a baseball game to a friend of mine without the expressed written permission of the commissioner of major league baseball!

1. How would a company obtain a geostationary parking slot for a SBSP satellite?
2. How would a company obtain a license to broadcast power from space over radio frequencies?

Excellent questions. Here are the answers that I slapped together from the Internet. (Special thanks to Maldivian Digital, and Wikipedia for having some well researched info posted on their sites!) Please check my work and let me know if I’ve embarrassed myself in public (again):

1. How does a company obtain a geostationary parking slot for a SBSP satellite?
   • Parking slots are allotted internationally, by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
   • However, the ITU only allocates orbital slots to countries, and not to private sector companies.
   • Companies must negotiate with countries who hold the rights to orbital slots of interest. They must establish an agreement whereby space-based solar power satellites can thereafter occupy the countries’ allocated orbital slot(s).
   • This is a common and standard practice by companies operating communications satellites in the geostationary belt. Space-based solar power companies will follow these routine and well established procedures to acquire orbital parking slots.
   • When satellites are located close to each other, their up-link and downlink frequencies and polarisations are to be coordinated, so that there is no interference. Sometimes this requires that existing frequencies or polarisations be altered by existing satellites, to accommodate a new entrant.
   • The ITU which allocates the orbital slots (to countries who in turn may grant use of their slots to commercial ventures) requires that all players coordinate their frequencies so that there is no disruption of service. The new entrant is obliged to ensure that their transmissions will not disrupt existing services.
   • Frequency coordination is a technical matter, and not easily resolved, particularly in regions over India, where practically every orbital slot is occupied by one or more satellites.
2. How would a company obtain a license to broadcast power from space over radio frequencies?
   • Space-based solar power companies most likely will broadcast power from space to Earth using radio frequencies in the industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) radio bands originally reserved internationally for the use of RF electromagnetic fields for industrial, scientific, and medical purposes other than communications. In general, communications equipment must accept any interference generated by ISM equipment.
   • ISM bands are defined by the ITU-R in 5.138, 5.150, and 5.280 of the Radio Regulations. Individual countries’ use of the bands designated in these sections may differ due to variations in national radio regulations. Because communication devices using the ISM bands must tolerate any interference from ISM equipment, these bands are typically given over to uses intended for unlicensed operation, since unlicensed operation typically needs to be tolerant of interference from other devices anyway. In the United States of America, ISM uses of the ISM bands are governed by Part 18 of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules, while Part 15 Subpart B contains the rules for unlicensed communication devices, even those that use the ISM frequencies. Thus, designers of equipment for use in the United States in the ISM bands should be familiar with the relevant portions of both Part 18 and Part 15 Subpart B of the FCC Rules.
   • Specifically, space-based solar power companies will broadcast energy from space to Earth at 2.45 GHz, or 5.8 GHz
   • In recent years these bands have also been shared with license-free error-tolerant communications applications such as wireless LANs and cordless phones in the 0.915 GHz, 2.45 GHz, and 5.8 GHz bands. Because licensed devices already are required to be tolerant of ISM emissions in these bands, unlicensed low power uses are generally able to operate in these bands without causing problems for licensed uses.
   • SBSP companies must engage with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to secure general approval for the use of these frequencies.
   • SBSP companies must also engage with customer countries’ agencies responsible for national radio regulations (eg, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US) to obtain approval to use either 2.45 GHz or 5.8 GHz for power broadcasts in their country.
   • If these radio frequencies are unavailable, SBSP companies might pursue power beaming using lasers at 1.0 micron or 0.86 micron wavelengths. This removes the need for any frequency approval, as lasers are not regulated as radio frequencies.
   • SBSP companies must also engage with national aviation agencies (eg, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the US) to establish no-fly zones around radio or laser energy corridors between the satellite and its ground-based receivers, as may be required by national or local laws.

There’s a lot that goes into building space-based solar power systems. Let’s get it out on the table so we can take a look at all that goes into it and think together about how to grease the tracks of progress.

Cheers!

Coyote

Intel recently brought the concept closer to reality with a live demo illuminating a 60 watt bulb on stage at an annual meeting in San Francisco of the company’s developers. Their goal is simple, free computers and other devices from power cords.

The event was reported by staff writers on Spacemart.com in an article titled, “Intel Cuts Electric Cords With Wireless Power System.”

I think if people used wireless power broadcast systems in their own homes, the concept of power beaming from space wouldn’t seem so strange or even dangerous. Perhaps we need to give a push to this idea?

Cheers!

Coyote

“Your concern about weaponization of the system and environmental risks are proper and deserve solid answers. For the answers (and a whole bunch of other great information) let me point you to a special edition of Ad Astra magazine produced by the National Space Society.

If you look on page 29 you’ll see the answers as to why space-based solar power satellites cannot be weaponized. Let me add to that list the following items:

• The DoD will not own or operate SBSP satellites. Energy production and distribution is outside of its Title X authority. In my opinion the DoD merely wants to be a customer of safe, clean energy and is most comfortable purchasing its energy from commercial vendors, just as it does today. The interest shown by the National Security Space Office (NSSO) in hosting the work done by the Space-Based Solar Power Study Group was largely because NASA does not do energy and the DoE does not do space. In other words, it was a ball being dropped along organizational lines.
  
• The security-related interest of the NSSO as it stepped in to host the study was three fold:
  • Provide more energy sources to hopefully alleviate energy competition as a trigger for war between the major powers in the 21st Century
  • Achieve American energy independence from foreign oil suppliers who attract US vital interests in areas and with peoples with whom we really would prefer to interact with in ways other than a dependent customer-supplier relationship.
    
  • Provide a source of clean energy that provides America with broader options regarding carbon contamination and clean-up, as well as improved ability to make progress on treaties such as Kyoto.
    
• Simple inspections of the waveguides for either laser or microwave transmitters on the satellites can easily verify that the beam cannot be focused narrowly to create a weapons effect. Such inspections can and likely will be conducted at time of insurance inspection, licensing, and registration before launch. International inspectors would be welcome and encouraged.
• The goal is to have international corporations own and operate these satellites and provide power to international customers–that’s the key to defense of these huge birds–deterrence by mutual defense through broad international ownership and international customership–an attack on a satellite is an attack against all.
  

As for environmental safety, especially when transmitting power into disaster areas and feeding power to forward bases, I envision spreading the several kilometer in diameter rectifying antenna on air bases or other relatively secure areas in the theater of operations and using ground broadcasting from there to the forward forces, first responders, or relief workers. That way we keep the beam from space very broad and desaturated. No way do we want ANY accusation of this being a weapon.

Keep in mind that there are two forms of power broadcasting that can be done from satellites. The first form is by microwave at 2.45 GHz and 5.8 GHz. These are the same frequencies that are used by internet wifi, cordless phones, and blue tooth. Since the beam is fairly well focused on the rectifying antenna we will prevent interference with those systems. In addition, the intensity of a cellular telephone placed next to the head delivers more radiation to the user than space-based solar power possibly can. The second form of power transmission from space is by laser at 1.0 microns (silicon) or 0.86 microns (Galium Arsinide). Laser transmissions are obviously more focused than microwave, but still must be spread to prevent overheating of the system, which also removes the risk of weaponization.

As for multinational approaches, when it comes to space, government-led multinational ventures are risky for a very strange and almost counterintuitive reason. The International Space Station (ISS) is a case in point. We assembled it with our very best allies and partners, but everybody got their feelings hurt in the process. In my opinion, it is far less likely that we will cooperate on such projects government-to-government in the near future because of the miserable experience of the ISS. Everybody was waiting for various governments to cut their red tape and stood around tensely waiting for last-minute funding and various approvals for go-aheads. Budgets changed frequently which drove some dramatic redesigns that impacted several other players. As a result, the project had all the joy of loaning money to relatives with gambling problems.

I personally believe that in order to make space-based solar power a reality that business must lead the way. However, government does have a role. Governments should conduct some R&D to improve efficiencies inherent to the system, remove bureaucratic barriers, and fund experiments to incrementally buy down some of the risk that business must take on. Examples include increasing the efficiencies of solar cells, lowering the cost and increasing the turnaround rate for launch vehicles, advancing the development of an international space traffic control system, securing the orbital parking slots and frequency allowances for these satellites, and conducting concept demonstrators.

It is also my opinion that it is best if commercial companies take government research and lead the development effort for space-based solar power, and then own and operate such systems. In the first instance, they partner more broadly and far easier than governments do. Take a Boeing aircraft for example. Nearly 40% of the components on the latest Boeing aircraft are made by Airbus. Conversely, nearly 40% of the components on the latest Airbus aircraft are made by Boeing. That did not take massive government negotiations. Business is international by its very nature. Take a look at the products in your home. They are likely a hodgepodge of gadgets with parts made all over the world and assembled somewhere else. It’s nothing personal, it’s just business. The problem with government leadership is that it often gets personal.

Best of all, when business is enabled to get the job done, they do so on their own dime, not the taxpayer’s. I like it when the taxpayers get a break. I want space-based solar power in the worst way, but not on the backs of the taxpayer, and only when the business case is sufficiently made that industry can profitably sustain the effort over the long run. We must avoid the fits and starts in industry that did such great damage to the overall space industry in the 1990s when wild enthusiasm collided with reality on several projects. In the end, I want the commercial sector to do it, and I want my government to clear the obstacles, such as ITAR (which I hate with a passion), out of the way so Americans can work with their international business partners to start bending the steel to make it happen!

Space-Based Solar Power is a huge undertaking. I need fleets of reusable rockets and spaceplanes to get ‘er done. Since these birds MUST be launched into a prograde orbit, I need lots and lots of lift coming out of Florida and hopefully other domestic launch sites to make it happen. That said, current sites cannot accommodate the full compliment of launches that I will need without massive expansion. I will need launches from international partners as well. If led by American industry, this will make America the hub of commercial space launch once again–with the busiest launch industry in the world. Think jobs, jobs, jobs. The shuttle is peanuts compared to this project.

I want to hit on the fact that space-based solar power transcends other projects because it crosses the lines of 6 major policy areas; Energy, Environment, Commerce, Space, Education, and Defense. Every dollar spent on SBSP addresses six sets of policies. Where else can government and the business sector collaborate to get a 6-to-1 return on investment for our future? As you see, there is no bureaucratic home for SBSP inside any single government organization. Perhaps this is another argument why this is best done in the business sector.

Space-based solar power is part of an energy diet that should be rich with a variety of safe, clean energy sources for America, its Allies, and the World. It is NOT the answer to ALL problems, but it IS part of solution.”

Your thoughts on my reply?

Staff writers for the Tech Space section of Space Mart reported back on 20 Feb 2007 in an online article titled, “Darkest Material Developed In Lab:”

The material, a thin coating comprised of low-density arrays of loosely vertically aligned carbon nanotubes that absorbs more than 99.9 percent of light, could one day be used to boost the efficiency and effectiveness of solar energy conversion, infrared sensors and other devices…(bolding by coyote)

Would a couple of our technical friends please explain why this could boost efficiency and effectiveness of solar energy conversion…better yet, apply this to space solar power?

Coyote

Our very good friend, Hu Davis, recently circulated some good questions regarding the who, what, when, where, why, and hows of demonstrating space solar power. He poses the questions from the perspectives of two groups; space solar power enthusiasts, and some NASA people who work the International Space Station (ISS). (Please note that like the rest of us, our friends at NASA-ISS are just brainstorming with us to see what help the ISS might be able to lend to advance space solar power concepts–there is no official NASA position or policy on any of this yet.)

Below you will find the questions posed by Hu. Please comment!

From the SBPS crowd:

1. What should be the content, scope and cost of an updated systems study to re-examine the cost effectiveness of a full scale network of 5 to 10 GWe satellites and their necessary space and ground systems? There are many subordinate questions not yet answered, including how to pay for it and who should run it.

2. What should be early, low cost (< $100 Millions total) demonstrations? By whom? When? Source of funds?

3. What should be demonstrated at higher cost, but costing much less (10-20% of that of a full scale prototype)? Sequence? Timing? Cost? Whose money?

4. How should we address the “space infra-structure” matter? When? Who? In what order? Time and costs?

5. What will the full scale prototype be? When can it become operational? Schedule? Cost? Barriers?

From the ISS bunch:

1. What can the ISS support? Power / time? Suspended mass? Torques? Dimensions of test articles? Pointing? RMS usage? EVA? Expected end date of availability? We need an “ISS User’s Guide” for space power development.

Thanks! Coyote

Click here for the “Interim Assessment!”

From the Foreword of the report itself:

Preventing resource conflicts in the face of increasing global populations and demands in the 21st century is a high priority for the Department of Defense. All solution options to these challenges should be explored, including opportunities from space.

In March 2007, the National Security Space Office’s Advanced Concepts Office presented the idea of space‐based solar power (SBSP) as a potential grand opportunity to address not only energy security, but environmental, economic, intellectual, and space security as well. First proposed in the late 1960’s, the concept was last explored in the NASA’s 1997 “Fresh Look” Study. In the decade since this last study, advances in technology and new challenges to security have warranted a current exploration of the strategic implications of SBSP. For these reasons, my office sponsored a no‐cost Phase 0 Architecture Feasibility Study of SBSP during the Spring and Summer of 2007.

Unlike traditional contracted architecture studies, the attached report was compiled through an innovative and collaborative approach that relied heavily upon voluntary internet discussions by more than 170 academic, scientific, technical, legal, and business experts around the world. I applaud the high quality of work accomplished by the team leaders and all participants who contributed in the last six months. I encourage them to continue their work in earnest as they move beyond this interim report and seek to answer the question of whether SBSP can be developed and deployed within the first half of this century to provide affordable, clean, safe, reliable, sustainable and expandable energy for mankind.

This interim assessment contains significant initial findings and recommendations that should provide pause and consideration for national and international policy makers, business leaders, and citizens alike. It appears that technological challenges are closing rapidly and the business case for creating SBSP is improving with each passing year. Still absent, however, is an appropriate catalyst to stimulate the various interested parties toward actually developing a SBSP capability. I encourage all to read this report and consider the opportunities that SBSP presents as part of a national and international debate for action on how best to preserve security for all.

//signed 9 Oct 07//
JOSEPH D. ROUGE, SES
Acting Director, National Security Space Office

Immediate military tactical and operational needs:

1. Dramatically reduce the energy logistics train to forward operating bases and reduce the need to secure massive energy convoys and stores in:
   1. Disaster relief efforts
   2. Nation building efforts
   3. Combat zones
2. Beam power directly to vehicles in all operating media for the following reasons
   1. Reduce weight of carrying fuel
   2. Increase range and loiter time
   3. Eliminate need for refueling and reduce the need for refueling vehicles
   4. Reduce the need for consuming local energy supplies
   5. Reduce size and signature
3. Use SSP for liquifaction of carbon-neutral fuels for current generation of liquid-fueled systems
   1. Continue to exploit current liquid fuel infrastructure, using carbon neutral fuels
   2. Gain independence from foreign liquid fuel providers

Urgent national security strategic goals:

1. Assist in achieving national energy independence from current liquid fuel providers
   1. Reduce level of national interest in unstable regions
   2. Reduce national dependence on unfriendly foreign governments
   3. Reduce the risk of energy competition wars in the 21st Century
2. Assist allies in achieving their national energy independence
   1. Develop and strengthen broad international partnerships
   2. Participate in international energy consortia and alliances
3. Economic: Become an energy exporter
   1. Increase national ability to influence or avoid geopolitical events
   2. Increase GNP, wealth of the nation, and increase tax revenue
   3. Use energy earnings to pay off national debt
4. Environmental: Dramatically reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere
   1. Prevent food wars which might happen if global warming continues
   2. Enhance soft power and green credibility around the world
   3. Lead the international clean energy movement by example

So you can see, this is a disruptive technology for security operations, but far more importantly, it will redefine geopolitical relationships and removes energy competition as the major driver for wars. Personally, I think war prevention is the highest form of security.

The other key to improving security with this concept is moving it quickly into the commercial sector at the earliest possible time. The DoD merely wants to be a customer of a commercially available product–energy. We do NOT want to trigger false security dilemmas. This will drive multinational partnering and international engagement, which is called for in our National Space Policy. This is one of the key reasons why we initiated this study on the Internet and in the media–to provide openness.

Your comments???

“The atmosphere has two bandwidth width windows though which it is possible to beam power between space and the surface efficiently, and outside of which atmospheric absorption will kill you: (1) a microwave window, of which the 2.45 GHz frequency (~ 12 centimeter wavelength) employed in the 1970s DoD/NASA reference SPS design is typical, and (2) a visible window extending perhaps as far into the near infrared as a micron of so in wavelength. …

The microwave window allows radio astronomers to see galaxies with their large antennae at the Earth’s surface; the second allows us to see the stars with our eyeballs. However, the wavelengths of these windows differ by a factor of 100,000, with profound implications for sizing of power beamers for space solar power applications. A major consequence of the beam spreading by diffraction related to that employed by Arthur Smith below — that is, the factor X = (transmitter aperture)x(receiver aperture)/(wavelength)(distance) must be of order one for the transmission efficiency to be of order one or greater because only then will the receiver aperture be big enough to capture the beam main lobe — is that kilometer or greater sized transmitting and receiving apertures are needed for microwave beamers to capture the main fraction of transmitted power from geostationary orbit (GEO) — the best location at least near term of a solar power satellite.

The diffraction limit on electromegnetic waves is a fundamental law of physics built into the structure of this universe. It can’t be beaten by clever engineering, and not for lack of trying (sparce arrays, etc.) The DoE/NASA reference SPS design of the 70s wound up with a 1 kilometer phased array transmitter and 10 x 13 kilometer rectenna. With these dimensions, and in order to attain a reasonable intensities inside the main lobe of the beam, you need a gigawatt sized SSP; with 5 x 10 kilometer solar panel arrays: ten gigawatts for Peter Glaser’s DoE/NASA reference design; perhaps as little as one GW for John Mankins’ Fresh Look Study cleverly designed technology. But still big. Meaning big capital investment prior to first power. In all fairness, fusion with its different physics scaling laws, also drives you for different reasons to large machines, like the 12 billion dollar International Experimental Thermonuclear Reactor (ITER) tokamak under construction in the South of France. This project isn’t even designed to produce net electric power. What it aims at is a sustained plasma burn from hot alpha particles, a “scientific milestone” far short of actual power output. Size matters, and even though it’s an interesting and relevant question why the huge ITER has its $12 billion R & D program, while SSP, intended for the same job of base load electricity production, has no money. The large size and capital investment to first power of both systems has to impact the business case. Ironically, it may be just because fusion is seen as a dream in the uncertain future, while SSP appears much more technologically mature that funding is so hard to get.

In the general soup of contemporary alternate energy discussions, diode laser beamers in geostationary orbit are a total game-changer for demonstrating space based solar power experimentally. We can build and test them now. Can we beam electricity into Iraq even as the insurgency blows up power lines? Can’t say now how much it might cost, but it’s certainly feasible in principle. My predilections are to demonstrate beaming power to some poor African village, winning the hearts and minds of our brothers and sisters in the developing world, as opposed to blasting them to bits, as some will certainly accuse developers of laser power beaming of. But the thing about any new technology is that you really can’t say at the outset where exactly it will go. What we can say with some assurance that no one has a clue how to build a small, cheap fusion reactor that would work. But we can almost certainly build an SSP with laser beaming now that would work; and build it small enough to fit into a single launch vehicle payload at a small fraction of the cost of ITER, or for that matter of FutureGen (DoE’s proposed coal-gasification to electricity and hydrogen pilot plant with CO2 sequestered), or one of DoE’s new design Gen IV fission reactors on the drawing boards. So I want to strongly agree with Jordin Kare’s comments on a the viability of an laser SSP demo expressed in his E-Mail below.

Indeed, we, my son Eric & I, have taken this idea further to the point of developing a 3-page report for DARPA: darpa-ssp-demo-exec-su_f2391.doc). But at least so far, we haven’t got very far. Perhaps it hasn’t been seen by the right people, or hasn’t become visible at the right historical moment. So I throw it into the ring once more as part of this discussion on the business case for SBSP. (We space power guys may not have any money, but we have the most acronyms: SPS, SSP and now SBSP).

Your comments, of course, are most welcome.

Cheers,

Marty Hoffert
Professor Emeritus of Physics
Andre and Bella Meyer Hall of Physics
Room 525, Mail Code 1026
4 Washington Place
New York University
New York, NY 10003-6621 “

I encourage you to read the paper available at the link above. Does it describe a viable way forward?

But I’ve discovered that Wikipedia can be a wealth of information and misinformation…and the innocent might not know the difference.

Please take a look at Wikipedia’s page titled Space Power Satellite.

Is this information or misinformation? Would this serve as a sufficient primer on the subject of space solar power? What edits can we make to improve this page for everyone’s benefit?

The article implies that India has identified the need for cheap, reliable, frequently reusable spacelift as the principle technical challenge that must be overcome.  The article states:

“Mr Saraswath [India's Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO) chief controller for research and development] said Reusable Launch Vehicles are needed to make [space-based solar power] cost effective.”

Solving the spacelift problem has been identified almost universally in all studies as the principle impediment to all activities in space—this also seems to be the case regarding space-based solar power—now with some independent confirmation from India.

But what is really interesting in Stanley Theodore’s article is the same expression of concern to pursue space-based solar power to  “meet ever growing energy requriements” while recognizing that ”the era of conventional fuels is ending.” 

This same sentiment was expressed directly by the President of India, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, on 20 April 2007, before a forum arranged by Boston Univeristy when he stated:  (Read the press release from asia.spaceref.com)

“[C]ivilization will run out of fossil fuels in this Century. However, Solar energy is clean and inexhaustible. However solar flux on earth is available for just 6-8 hours every day whereas incident radiation on space solar power station would be 24 hrs every day. What better vision can there be for the future of space exploration, than participating in a global mission for perennial supply of renewable energy from space, he asked.”

To what degree does this signal a policy alignment between India and the goals of this study?  To what degree does this suggest a partnership with India is ready for the making?