The solar umbrella: A low-cost demonstration of scalable space based solar power

Abstract

Within the past decade, the Space Solar Power (SSP) community has seen an influx of stakeholders willing to entertain the SSP prospect of potentially boundless, base-load solar energy. Interested parties affiliated with the Department of Defense (DoD), the private sector, and various international entities have all agreed that while the benefits of SSP are tremendous and potentially profitable, the risk associated with developing an efficient end to end SSP harvesting system is still very high.In an effort to reduce the implementation risk for future SSP architectures, this study proposes a system level design that is both low-cost and seeks to demonstrate the furthest transmission of wireless power to date. The overall concept is presented and each subsystem is explained in detail with best estimates of current implementable technologies. Basic cost models were constructed based on input from JPL subject matter experts and assume that the technology demonstration would be carried out by a federally funded entity. The main thrust of the architecture is to demonstrate that a usable amount of solar power can be safely and reliably transmitted from space to the Earth's surface; however, maximum power scalability limits and their cost implications are discussed.

HanaFlex: a large solar array for space applications

“…4 For the solar array application, the desired final form is flat, but it may also be possible to deploy into a concave or convex form as well (e.g., for satellite receivers). [14][15][16] The folding design is based on the origami flasher model. 17 In origami, paper is usually assumed to have zero thickness, which is a close enough approximation for origami folding patterns to work.…”