Value chain · CLM-1459
Low confidence
The evidence behind this statement is thin, indirect or second-hand. Read it as a lead to check, not as a settled finding.
In plain terms
A 2013 design study for a large constellation of solar power satellites proposes that each one climb to its final orbit on electric thrusters powered by a separate, smaller set of solar panels rather than its main panels, which stay folded during the long trip to limit exposure to space weather and debris. The study expects the separate panels to be damaged on the way and reuses them afterwards to help keep the satellite pointed.
The claim as recorded
Leitgab's 2013 conceptual design for a utility-scale constellation of hypermodular self-assembling solar power satellites, each unit sized to one Falcon Heavy launch (about 520 kW of RF) and about 1,900 units for about 1 GW of RF power, raises each unit from low Earth orbit to a geosynchronous Laplace plane orbit with on-board electric propulsion thrusters powered by "auxiliary photovoltaic (PV) modules", "10 PV panels with similar active surface area as the sandwich module and about 20% of efficiency," giving about 31 kW: a separate, smaller array, not the unit's main power-generating sandwich platform. The paper gives no reason for this choice beyond following the author's earlier design (Ref. [8]); it states as an accepted cost that "the propulsion photovoltaic modules are expected to suffer radiation and micrometeoroid damage and reduced efficiency" during the transfer, after which they serve as additional power for 3-axis stabilisation; it gives one reason for the on-board electric transfer itself, that no in-space orbit transfer infrastructure is foreseen, and one for the main assembly, which "remains undeployed for transfer to minimize its cross section versus space weather and orbital debris effects and impacts."
Scope and limits
A single conceptual design, modelled and not built, in a six-page workshop paper posted to arXiv. The paper gives no transfer duration, so how long the auxiliary panels spend in the radiation belts is not stated. Other held designs answer the same question in other ways, so this choice is one design's, not a finding about SBSP. Boeing's 1977 system definition study for NASA sizes a self-powered transfer from low Earth orbit to GEO after construction in low Earth orbit, with argon ion thruster panels on the satellite's modules drawing on part of the satellite's own array, deployed for the trip (SRC-475, PDF p.15 and p.117; CLM-1117 records the transfer degradation). Oleson's 1999 NASA study for the sun tower gives each node a separate 200 kW array for its electric propulsion, having set aside the node's own 2 to 4 MWe over concerns about docking large deployed nodes, and neglects degradation in the belts (SRC-213, PDF p.4). In a 2025 report, Frazer-Nash, Imperial College and Space Solar Engineering rule out an electric climb from low Earth orbit on solar-powered thrusters for their small-scale design, as the trip would keep the satellite too long in the inner radiation belt (PDF p.18 of SRC-076).
What it assumes
No assumptions are recorded against this claim.
Where it comes from
PDF p.3 (section II.C, Orbit Selection and Orbit Transfer), after the reason that no in-space orbit transfer infrastructure is foreseen: "each HSA-SPS is brought to GLPO after launch to LEO by on-board electric propulsion thrusters"; the other quotations in the claim are on the same page, the last in the sentence that introduces Fig. 3, whose caption places the auxiliary panels under the stacked sandwich modules. PDF p.2 (section II.A): one Falcon Heavy launches a unit of about 520 kW nameplate RF capacity. PDF p.4 (section IV): the cost estimate is for about 1900 units providing about 1 GW of RF power. The paper gives no transfer duration.
Basis: kW
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-002 not published in this release
- Supersedes
- CLM-0681 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-1459
CLM-1459, Energy Aperture, as of 2013.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.