Macrophase 1 The first phase is characterized by a space station which serves as a permanent space facility commonly used for many purposes. It will provide the SPS study with the minimum essential resources such as electrical power and a base to initiate construction experiment of large space structure. Experiments and tests required for materials and equipments to be used for the SPS will be planned and performed during this phase. Additional gains will be obtained from unintended experiments conducted on the space station. Thus, since important technological and engineering problems can be solved during it, this phase can be called “technology and engineering” phase. But the anticipated scale of space station would not be large enough to demonstrate safety against damage of environment and hazard to public health. Especially an experiment of heating ionosphere by the power transmission is not carried out. Of course, all the aspects of SPS should be studied during this phase but major milestones are set in respect to technological and engineering issues. Macrophase 2 During this phase a minimum size of SPS to be capable of verifying the engineering and key technology using the candidate operational hardware will be constructed. Limited number of technological options and system design candidates will be adopted for this model as the result of the previous phase effort. This phase is supposed to be the first opportunity for a large space structure to be transported and/or built in the geosynchronous orbit. Interaction between the SPS and other satellite systems utilizing the similar orbits will have been studied prior to starting this phase activities and will be actually examined. This model will give a rough estimation of the cost but still too small to give enough data for an economical study on the operational system. Thus mission of this model is to demonstrate the energy from space and hopefully to finalize solution of the environmental problem caused by the power transmission. The previous 10 MW model is categorized as a typical one for this phase. Macrophase 3 A minimum size of a complete operational system is to be constructed in this phase. Almost all the technologies required for this model are supposed to be available by the end of the previous phase, so the main purpose of this phase is to obtain realistic data for operational SPS system construction and operation. Engineering practice of the construction and operation has to be performed as close to the targeted operational model as possible. If a single model can not be selected even at this phase because of difficulty to determine a specific one among many promising systems, two or more systems should be considered to be tested during this phase. The minimum power level generated by the ground station of this phase should be 1 GW. The electrical power should be compatible with a conventional power utility system to verify all aspect of operational power system. If this is successfully accomplished, the SPS project will enter the operation phase, where the research and development will continue just as they are at the present land power system.
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