SRC-416

Space-Based Solar Power As an Opportunity for Strategic Security: Phase 0 Architecture Feasibility Study. Report to the Director, National Security Space Office. Interim Assessment Release 0.1, 10 October 2007

Commissioned by National Security Space Office, US Department of Defense. Who paid for a study is recorded because it bears on how its conclusions should be read, not because it makes them wrong.

Published claims resting on this source

• CLM-1437 A satellite in geostationary orbit, about 36,000 km up, goes round the Earth once in the time the Earth takes to turn once, which is just under 24 hours. So it stays over the same spot on the ground.
• CLM-1438 The ring of geostationary orbit lies over the Earth's equator. That ring is tilted by about 23.4 degrees to the flat plane in which the Earth travels round the Sun. So for most of the year the Sun is above or below the ring, and it lines up with the ring only around the two equinoxes.

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