Value chain · CLM-0903
In plain terms
The shared clock tells every sensor to take its reading at the same moment. How precise that clock must be depends on how fast the thing being read is changing. If the reference tone is at the same frequency as the incoming signal, the reading changes only as the structure bends, and milliseconds are plenty. If the two differ by megahertz, the reading spins at megahertz too, and nanoseconds are needed. In the built prototype the two differ by 10 MHz, but it tracks the signal continuously and takes no separate readings, so this timing requirement does not arise there in this form.
The claim as recorded
SRC-088 requires the pilot wavefront to be sampled "at a regular system-wide reference instant", so the timing reference exists to make scattered detectors sample simultaneously. Its required accuracy is set by the rate of change of what is measured, which is the pilot's phase RELATIVE TO the local reference, and that moves at two rates at once: 2.pi.f_IF from the beat between pilot and reference, plus k.v from the structure's own line-of-sight velocity. Whichever is faster governs. Against structural motion the requirement is milliseconds. Against the 10 MHz beat of SRC-001's frequency plan it is 2.42 ns differential - 2,762 times tighter than the 6.67 microsecond light-crossing time of a 2 km structure, so a broadcast tick is not adequate at a real intermediate frequency unless its propagation delay is compensated. At zero intermediate frequency the beat term vanishes entirely and only the structural requirement remains.
Evidence behind this: T0-derivation. CALC-101 carries the arithmetic.
Scope and limits
The structural branch numbers depend on an assumed range of modal frequencies and amplitudes for which no source exists - see CLM-0907. They are reported in the working as a parametric table and no single value is asserted here. The beat branch depends only on frequencies SRC-001 states and carries no such assumption. Differential error is what matters; a timing offset common to the whole array is piston and costs nothing.
What it assumes
A SAMPLED receiver. In a continuously tracking analogue conjugator there is no sampling instant and this requirement does not arise in this form - SRC-001's phase-locked loop never takes a discrete sample, which is why it tracks a target rotating at 3.6 degrees per second with no re-acquisition step. The patent's sampled language and the built continuous hardware are different machines, both within claim 22.
Where it comes from
This is the project's own working, shown in full:
CALC-101. Structural branch:dt < sigma_phi / (k_t . 2.pi.f_m.a). Beat branch:dt < sigma_phi / (2.pi.f_IF) = 0.15175/(2.pi.10e6) = 2.415e-9 s. Light-crossing2000/c = 6.671e-6 s, a ratio of 2,762. The intermediate frequency is 10 MHz on both of the frequency plans SRC-001 states, which differ by a megahertz elsewhere, so the figure does not depend on which is read; the paper also describes it in prose as being in the 10 MHz range and labels a 10 MHz oscillator on its block diagram. Patent wording, SRC-088 internal p14 lines 1-3: "sample the spherical wavefront produced by the pilot beam transmitter at a regular system-wide reference instant".
Basis: nanoseconds and milliseconds (tolerable differential timing error)
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-013 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-0903
CLM-0903, Energy Aperture, as of 2026-09-13.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-001
- CLM-0511The first real, built, and measured version of CASSIOPeiA's beam-steering hardware converts electricity to radio power at 42%, against...CLM-0512The small prototype achieved a beam strength close to what a real system would use, but only over an area the size of a small table, using...CLM-0516Public money funded a real piece of hardware that was built and tested, not just another report -- a rare outcome in this field -- even...CLM-0916The built prototype gives every single antenna its own steering circuit rather than sharing one between a group. The steering signal...CLM-0942Three documents held here give three different sizes for the same satellite's transmitting antenna. The patent says 1 to 1.5 km across and...CLM-1441Documents give the size of the CASSIOPeiA satellite design as anything from 1 to 2 km across. For a full-size version delivering 2...
- Also from SRC-088
- CLM-0896The patent describes measuring the incoming steering signal at scattered sensors, not at every antenna, and working out the values in...CLM-0897The satellite aims its beam by listening for a low-power signal sent up from the receiving station, measuring the shape of that arriving...CLM-0899The patent never says the steering signal is protected in any way. There is a difference between scrambling that signal so nobody can read...CLM-0900The satellite can point its beam far further than there is Earth to point at, so moving power from one receiving station to another is not...CLM-0905Sharing a clock is not the same as being told what to do. The clock and the carrier tell the antennas nothing about where to send the power...CLM-0913When the satellite corrects its own bending by listening to the ground signal, what is left over is not how far the antennas moved. It is...CLM-0942Three documents held here give three different sizes for the same satellite's transmitting antenna. The patent says 1 to 1.5 km across and...CLM-1176Each transmitting element on the satellite is a small cluster of three short rod antennas standing a quarter of a wavelength apart, all...More on the source page.