Abstract
Space solar power systems (SSPSs) have the potential to provide abundant quantities of electric power for use on the Earth. One of the hurdles to them is the transportation of SSPSs to the operational geostationary Earth orbit (GEO). The objectives of this study are to examine the transportation of SSPSs, and to give a reference transportation scenario. This study presumes that the SSPSs have a mass of 10,000 tons each and are constructed at a rate of one per year. Reusable launch vehicles (RLVs) are assumed for the transportation to low Earth orbit (LEO), and reusable orbit transfer vehicles (OTVs) propelled by a solar electric propulsion system for the transportation from LEO to GEO. The payload element delivered to LEO by each launch is individually transferred by each OTV transportation service to GEO, where the elements are assembled into a whole SSPS. The OTV round-trip time is assumed to be a year. With these operations and reasonable estimations for the OTV subsystems, the OTV payload ratio was obtained. This, with an SSPS element mass, gave the total mass that has to be launched by RLVs. The result indicated that about 300 times of launch are required per year.
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