A SUNLIGHT TO MICROWAVE POWER TRANSMISSION MODULE PROTOTYPE FOR SPACE SOLAR POWER

Abstract

The prospect of effectively limitless, continuous electricity from orbiting satellites for use on earth has captured many people's interest for decades. The proposed approach typically entails collection of solar energy, its conversion to microwave energy, and the wireless transmission of the microwaves to the earth. This offers the benefit of providing baseload power while avoiding diurnal cycle and atmospheric losses associated with terrestrial solar power. Proponents have contended that the implementation of such systems would offer energy security, environmental, and broad technological advantages to those who would undertake their development, while critics have pointed out economic, political, and logistical barriers. Niche applications, such as provision of power to remote military bases, might better tolerate the higher energy costs associated with early operational systems. Among recent implementations commonly proposed for solar power satellites, highly modular concepts have received considerable attention. Each employs an array of modules for performing conversion of sunlight into microwaves for transmission to earth. This work details results achieved in the design, development, integration, and testing of photovoltaic arrays, power electronics, microwave conversion electronics, and antennas for 2.45 GHz microwave-based "sandwich" module prototypes. Prototypes were fabricated and subjected to the challenging conditions inherent in the space environment, including solar concentration levels in which an array of modules might be required to operate. This testing of sandwich modules for solar power satellites in vacuum represents the first such effort. The effort culminated with two new sandwich module designs, "tile" and "step", each having respectively area-specific masses of 21.9 kg/m2 and 36.5 kg/m2, and mass-specific power figures of 4.5 W/kg at minimum one sun and 5.8 W/kg at minimum 2.2 suns (AM0) simulated solar illumination. The total combined sunlight to microwave efficiency of the modules was shown to be on the order of 8% and 7% for vacuum operation in the 10-6 torr regime. These represent the highest reported combined sandwich module efficiencies under either ambient or vacuum conditions, nearly quadrupling the previous efficiency record. The novel "step" concept was created to address thermal concerns and resulted in a patent publication. Results from module characterization are presented in context and compared with figures of merit, and practical thresholds are formulated and applied. The results and discussion presented provide an empirical basis for assessment of solar power satellite economic models, and point to several opportunities for improvements in area-specific mass, mass-specific power, and combined conversion efficiency of future prototypes.