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by mlyle 1144 days ago
> Concerning cooling- with such short times in eclipse I can’t imagine that it would have enough time to have cooling issues

Lots of thin structure with 70 minutes to radiate, with the only thing shining on it the earth's albedo subtending a tiny angle. I'd imagine it creates rather significant demands on structure and electrical connections.

I've not run the numbers on a GEO solar spacecraft, but the smallsat group that I'm mentoring that would be "thicker" than a lot of the GEO craft... gets down to -30C without heaters during its 40 minutes in eclipse while much closer to Earth.

> As to power disappearing with an adequately geographically integrated grid I don’t forsee that as really too much of a problem. Currently the grid deals with short term outs fairly well especially if they are planned for months in advance.

Yup, that's the point I'm making. A space based solar power craft has smaller problems from eclipse than a typical comsat. Batteries, etc, are not nearly as much of a concern. It's mostly the thermals that are left.

1 comments

Make it flexible. Connect panels with steel cables. Or steel reinforced aluminum conductor. Organize like spidernet. Let it slowly spin.

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