SPACE SOLAR POWER & EXPLORATION OVERVIEW • Typical electric propulsion (EP) exploration scenarios involve use of an EP “stage” with aerobraking at Mars in modifications of more conventional mission architectures - Solar Electric Propulsion System (SEPS) power levels typically limited to £ 1 MW - Higher power levels typically assumed to be approriate for nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) only * Recent studies of solar power satellites (SPS) suggest that a whole new class of systems should be considered • Space Solar Power (SSP) in combination with advanced electric propulsion and wireless power transmission (WPT) has the potential to enable wholly new exploration mission architectures - Technologies and systems have tremendous potential applicability to lunar and Mars exploration endeavors - Very long-lived (10-30 years) multi-megawatt space power systems - Very low specific mass, multi-megawatt solar electric propulsion systems - Wireless power transmission (100’s of kilowatts surface power achievable) THE “FRESH LOOK” STUDY OF SPACE SOLAR POWER ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEW • The Architecture of the 1979 SPS Reference Concept was limited to large, gigawatt-class platforms in Geostationary Earth Orbit • The “Fresh Look” SSP Study considered a variety of alternate Architectures — varying platform sizes and orbits - GEO @ 37,000 km - MEO @ 6,000 km - LEO @ 1,500 km • Significant improvements on the 1979 Reference were achieved
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