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Phased Array [was: ...100 MW of Space Solar Power ...persingle launch!]
Dr J R Stockton wrote:
Without analysis, ISTM that one does want the structures close together, not for visible or RF "optical" reasons, but since it's probably easier for other vehicles to avoid them that way. But it may be better to have them far enough apart to be dodged independently. There is microgravity to contend with here as well as electrostatic charging and repulsion. The microgravity fields of the individual elements will cause them to try and clump together if there isn't some sort of structure connecting them; once they get close enough their similar electrical charges will cause them to repel each other - the end result will be that the forces balance at some point, and they all start settling into a stable geodetic lattice of points with equal spacing between each of the elements.* Unfortunately, that stable shape is a sphere, so they start interfering with each other's microwave transmissions and getting into each other's shadows. But then the tidal forces get hold of them, as the ones on the side of the sphere facing away from Earth are in higher orbits than the ones on the side facing Earth, and the periods of the two orbits are subtly different. The details of what happens next in a system with dozens or hundreds of individual satellites in it would take a computer to simulate, but I don't think their behavior is simple by any means. * I think this effect was observed with the peeling insulation blanket fragments on the HST visible during the Shuttle's approach during the first repair mission. They seemed to be floating in a cloud around the telescope, rather than either being pulled into it by its tiny gravity field or drifting away from it due to the influence of different air drag versus mass characteristics or photon pressure from the sunlight striking them. Pat |
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