SRC-495

Solar Power Satellite System Definition Study, Volume II, Phase II Final Report, Reference System Description -- D180-25461-2; NASA CR-160443 not confirmed on pp.1-4; Revision A, February 1980

Commissioned by NASA Johnson Space Center, Contract NAS9-15636 (renders as "NAS9-1%36"). 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-0996 The beams the reference satellite would be built from are specified down to the wall thickness, and two contractors give the stiffness numbers.
• CLM-1018 Three years of study left the efficiency chain exactly where 1978 put it, and Boeing's own version says out loud the solar constant the 1978 figure only implied.
• CLM-1019 The programme gave three reasons for choosing the klystron; the company that designed the satellite said the choice was more or less arbitrary and the magnetron might be better. The 85 per cent tube efficiency that every cost chain uses is the contractor's estimate.
• CLM-1021 Boeing ran the timing reference down glass fibre in four stages, measured each fibre's delay by sending the signal back, and used a second tone at half the frequency to tell which cycle it was in - the same trick satellite navigation uses. Every one of the hundred thousand tubes got its own phase corrector.

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