Question:

Imagine that NASA sends up 5 sattelites,solar pv panel installation  The 4 sattelites will orbit the sun, within the Earth’s orbit. Each sattelite is equipped with a huge solar panel, generating power for a laser. This laser is directed against the 5th recieving sattelite, orbiting Earth. When a sattelite is beyond the sun, the laser will be sent to another sattelite, which will direct(mirror/convert) the laser, against the recieveing sattelite. But how do you convert laser (light) back to energy ? solar pv panel installation  Can you use a solar power panel again ?solar pv panel installation

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solar pv panel installation Imagine that NASA sends up 5 sattelites, The 4 sattelites will orbit the sun, within the Earth’s orbit. Each sattelite is equipped with a huge solar panel, generating power for a laser. This laser is directed against the 5th recieving sattelite, orbiting Earth. When a sattelite is beyond the sun, the laser will be sent to another sattelite, which will direct(mirror/convert) the laser, against the recieveing sattelite. But how do you convert laser (light) back to energy ? Can you use a solar power panel again ? — Regards Ingolf A wild idea…

how about mirrors instead of solar panels and lasers? and how about the satellites be in orbit around the earth instead of around the sun? and then let’s aim them all at the polar ice caps!  But first, everyone has to get scuba gear.

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Don’t need a laser..microwaves work just as well, if not better.solar pv panel installation   The last number I saw was something like 50% efficiency for the transmission of power, and that was years ago. There are a few problems though, regardless of the medium you use: what happens if something moves through the beam? That can be minimised by making the beam fairly diffuse, but the real problem is that it COULD be used as a weapon: a 100 megawatt beam of anything would probably do something nasty if aimed at a population centre! Time to build that skyhook…. –

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Imagine that NASA sends up 5 sattelites, The 4 sattelites will orbit the sun, within the Earth’s orbit. Each sattelite is equipped with a huge solar panel, generating power for a laser. This laser is directed against the 5th recieving sattelite, orbiting Earth. When a sattelite is beyond the sun, the laser will be sent to another sattelite, which will direct(mirror/convert) the laser, against the recieveing sattelite. But how do you convert laser (light) back to energy ? Can you use a solar power panel again ?solar pv panel installation

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Yes… but still … its the only way to transport energy wireless …. There must be a wave of ‘converting’ the light into a non-dangerous wave… or just close… — Regards Ingolf

- Hsolar pv panel installation  its the only way to transport energy wireless …. There must be a wave of ‘converting’ the light into a non-dangerous wave… or just close… — Regards Ingolf Don’t need a laser..microwaves work just as well, if not better.  The last number I saw was something like 50% efficiency for the transmission of power, and that was years ago. There are a few problems though, regardless of the medium you use: what happens if something moves through the beam? That can be minimised by making the beam fairly diffuse, but the real problem is that it COULD be used as a weapon: a 100 megawatt beam of anything would probably do something nasty if aimed at a population centre! Time to build that skyhook…. — Imagine that NASA sends up 5 sattelites, The 4 sattelites will orbit the sun, within the Earth’s orbit. Each sattelite is equipped with a huge solar panel, generating power for a laser. This laser is directed against the 5th recieving sattelite, orbiting Earth. When a sattelite is beyond the sun, the laser will be sent to another sattelite, which will direct(mirror/convert) the laser, against the recieveing sattelite. But how do you convert laser (light) back to energy ? Can you use a solar power panel again ?solar pv panel installation

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Yes i have heard about the mirror theori too I heard about a plant, in Africa somewhere… where about 400 mirrors was computercontrolled. All the mirrors sent the sunlight against a small piece of glasspipe. The water was offcourse flowing, in the glasspipe. This raised the temperature in the highlighted area to more than 100 degrees celcius, and also completely cleaned the water, in the same provess. In this way a small solar powerplant could work… but only on sunny days. Suppose the plant was build on the moon… 100% pure energy constantly… but not much thou… If you build a powerplant in space, that in theori could supply the whole planet with energy, how do you get it back to earth ? If its possible to transport energy thru light, with a minimum waste on the transport, could the new discovery, of ’speeding down the light’ be used ? Interesting futurethinking… — Regards Ingolf

solar pv panel installation Doesn’t matter which way you slice it: if you have ‘X’ amount of power to move from A to B, it’s either concentrated or diffuse. If you want diffuse…just put your solar panels on the ground! Of course…it might be easier not to bother putting the PV’s in space: just leave them on the ground, and put a bloody great mirror in space. MUCH easier & cheaper! Then your PV array could work at night. Or run a *really* long extension cord about 35 000 km. — Yes… but still … its the only way to transport energy wireless …. There must be a wave of ‘converting’ the light into a non-dangerous wave… or just close… — Regards Ingolf Don’t need a laser..microwaves work just as well, if not better.  The last number I saw was something like 50% efficiency for the transmission of power, and that was years ago. There are a few problems though, regardless of the medium you use: what happens if something moves through the beam? That can be minimised by making the beam fairly diffuse, but the real problem is that it COULD be used as a weapon: a 100 megawatt beam of anything would probably do something nasty if aimed at a population centre! Time to build that skyhook…. — Imagine that NASA sends up 5 sattelites, The 4 sattelites will orbit the sun, within the Earth’s orbit. Each sattelite is equipped with a huge solar panel, generating power for a laser. This laser is directed against the 5th recieving sattelite, orbiting Earth. When a sattelite is beyond the sun, the laser will be sent to another sattelite, which will direct(mirror/convert) the laser, against the recieveing sattelite. But how do you convert laser (light) back to energy ? Can you use a solar power panel again ? — Regards Ingolf A wild idea…

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As William said microwaves would be better. you could run them at the same power or a little higher as full sun but it would be 24/7/365. -solar pv panel installation  Imagine that NASA sends up 5 sattelites, The 4 sattelites will orbit the sun, within the Earth’s orbit. Each sattelite is equipped with a huge solar panel, generating power for a laser. This laser is directed against the 5th recieving sattelite, orbiting Earth. When a sattelite is beyond the sun, the laser will be sent to another sattelite, which will direct(mirror/convert) the laser, against the recieveing sattelite. But how do you convert laser (light) back to energy ? Can you use a solar power panel again ? — Regards Ingolf A wild idea… solar pv panel installation

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: As William said microwaves would be better. you could run them at the : same power or a little higher as full sun but it would be 24/7/365. …just don’t let that “aim” drift, or you’d start cooking random things on the ground.  ”Death ray in space”… I’m thinking it’d be a tough public-relations sell.solar pv panel installation

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A tough sell? Naahhh..instead of ’star wars’, spend 60 billion on ‘eco-friendly orbiting power stations’. No more nukes, nasty dams, coal/oil plants..just clean, solar energy! Oh..ok..so the military might want to borrow it for a few minutes every now and again, but what the hell..California is used to worse! solar pv panel installation  As William said microwaves would be better. you could run them at the : same power or a little higher as full sun but it would be 24/7/365. …just don’t let that “aim” drift, or you’d start cooking random things on the ground.  ”Death ray in space”… I’m thinking it’d be a tough public-relations sellsolar pv panel installation.

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…just don’t let that “aim” drift, or you’d start cooking random things on the ground.  ”Death ray in space”… I’m thinking it’d be a tough public-relations sell. solar pv panel installation

It wouldn’t be any worse then strong sunshine

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I don’t think there’s a factor 4000 on the market yet…solar pv panel installation   It wouldn’t be any worse then strong sunshine

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Ya there is, It’s called flannel – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I don’t think there’s a factor 4000 on the market yet… — It wouldn’t be any worse then strong sunshine

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Here is a link to an actual plant using mirrors.solar pv panel installation

..  during the time of star wars a mirror system was also suggested for the purpose of lighting “blacked out” areas during the night….  it would only focus the light enough to be equivalent to the sun over maybe a 100 mile radius…  now of course they say just a 100 square miles is enough ground for all the solar energy needed to power the USA I think… Carl

-solar pv panel installationl? Naahhh..instead of ’star wars’, spend 60 billion on ‘eco-friendly orbiting power stations’. No more nukes, nasty dams, coal/oil plants..just clean, solar energy! Oh..ok..so the military might want to borrow it for a few minutes every now and again, but what the hell..California is used to worse! — : As William said microwaves would be better. you could run them at the : same power or a little higher as full sun but it would be 24/7/365. …just don’t let that “aim” drift, or you’d start cooking random things on the ground.  ”Death ray in space”… I’m thinking it’d be a tough public-relations sell.solar pv panel installation

Response:

You folks are missing the point. I can build the system as a large phased array antenna that is locked onto a source on the ground and can’t be focused elsewhere. (If it looses lock, it defocuses and becomes just loud RF noise). If the UN military indicates “we will fry you” (having somehow subverted the design and construction process), the opponent says, “I have a large rocket with 5 tons of sand”. This power system is a large fixed target. It could be used for a weapon only once, and only without warning. Properly designed it would work safely, or not at all, and the largest risk is that opposing military forces would threaten each others power sats, and take us all off line for years. Think of the threat from Iraq. “Leave us alone while we eat our prey, or sit in the dark for a few years.”

solar pv panel installationl? Naahhh..instead of ’star wars’, spend 60 billion on ‘eco-friendly orbiting power stations’. No more nukes, nasty dams, coal/oil plants..just clean, solar energy! Oh..ok..so the military might want to borrow it for a few minutes every now and again, but what the hell..California is used to worse!

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Well… atleast it could be used for missions to Mars, or any other planet… still it would be dangerous… but this should be handle by simple computers, following Azimuts laws… and the 45-72% effeciancy , im sure, could be refined with some investigation, to be more like 90-95% effectiveness. Imagine the free power spacecrafts could harvest. Ion engines/ or better, could then power the space craft. Put about 100 laserrecievers/sattelites in close orbit around the Sun. All recievers/sattelites, should “work” together gathering Solarenergy, all around the sun to one HUGE power source, or in many small lasers, powering small crafts. — Regards Ingolf – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Imagine that NASA sends up 5 sattelites, The 4 sattelites will orbit the sun, within the Earth’s orbit. Each sattelite is equipped with a huge solar panel, generating power for a laser. This laser is directed against the 5th recieving sattelite, orbiting Earth. When a sattelite is beyond the sun, the laser will be sent to another sattelite, which will direct(mirror/convert) the laser, against the recieveing sattelite. But how do you convert laser (light) back to energy ? Can you use a solar power panel again ? — Regards Ingolf A wild idea…  The problem with using a laser is that it isn’t very power efficient, i.e. the power you get out of the system versus the power you put in. I deal with lasers at my place of employment and we usually see 10% efficiency. Of course I’m not dealing with free space lasers (usually CO2 lasers, dye lasers, or DPSS lasers), but solid state lasers (diode lasers) coupled into an optical fiber. Using microwaves is better (and more efficient) and conversion back to useful electric power is also better (and more efficient) Microwave conversion efficiency could probably reach 90%, and conversion efficiency of microwave energy back to electricity would probably be somewhere between 50 and 80%. Total efficiency would be somewhere between 45 and 72%.   There is a down side to using lasers for power transmission: You’ve now got one hell of a powerful laser weapon in orbit.   The laser beam would have to be very powerful and very narrow (relatively speaking) compared to using microwaves to transmit power. Even a small off axis error in aiming the downlink laser could cause a lot of damagesolar pv panel installation!

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solar pv panel installation  Imagine that NASA sends up 5 sattelites, The 4 sattelites will orbit the sun, within the Earth’s orbit. Each sattelite is equipped with a huge solar panel, generating power for a laser. This laser is directed against the 5th recieving sattelite, orbiting Earth. When a sattelite is beyond the sun, the laser will be sent to another sattelite, which will direct(mirror/convert) the laser, against the recieveing sattelite. But how do you convert laser (light) back to energy ? Can you use a solar power panel again ? — Regards Ingolf A wild idea…

The problem with using a laser is that it isn’t very power efficient, i.e. the power you get out of the system versus the power you put in. I deal with lasers at my place of employment and we usually see 10% efficiency. Of course I’m not dealing with free space lasers (usually CO2 lasers, dye lasers, or DPSS lasers), but solid state lasers (diode lasers) coupled into an optical fiber. Using microwaves is better (and more efficient) and conversion back to useful electric power is also better (and more efficient) Microwave conversion efficiency could probably reach 90%, and conversion efficiency of microwave energy back to electricity would probably be somewhere between 50 and 80%. Total efficiency would be somewhere between 45 and 72%.   There is a down side to using lasers for power transmission: You’ve now got one hell of a powerful laser weapon in orbit.   The laser beam would have to be very powerful and very narrow (relatively speaking) compared to using microwaves to transmit power. Even a small off axis error in aiming the downlink laser could cause a lot of damage!solar pv panel installation

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Theoretically you can attain 98% efficiency converting incoming laser energy back to electricity – assuming no losses in transit, and the laser is bandgap matched to the photocell in question. Solar cells are relatively inefficient because they must deal with so called ‘thermal light sources.’  That is their color is spread across the spectrum according to the Planck Curve.  The surface of the Sun is about 5800K, so the Planck Curve for sunlight is that of a 5800K radiator. Solar cells, and all photo-cells, convert light to electricity whenever electrons are promoted across a bandgap.  There is a bandgap energy associated with this.  Each photon of light impinging on a photocell or solar cell, has a photon energy associated with it. Shorter or bluer wavelengths are more energetic than longer or redder wavelengths. When the photon energy is less than the bandgap energy, the photo cell doesn’t get enough energy to promote electrons across the bandgap,solar pv panel installation  so this energy doesn’t contribute at all to the photocell’s operation. When the photon energy is greater than the bandgap energy, the photo cell gets enough energy to promote electrons across the bandgap, but only the bandgap energy is contributed to the photo-cell’s operation. So, for colors that are twice as energetic as the bandgap energy for example, the circuit only gets half of those photon’s energy. When the photon energy matches the bandgap energy, the photocell gets enough energy to promote electrons across the bandgap, and all of the photon’s energy goes into the photo-cell’s operation.  The efficiency is limited by a second order effect- the external quantum efficiency. The EQE for most photocells exceeds 98%! So, to figure out how efficient a photocell is draw a Planck Curve for sunlight, then at the color that equals the bandgap energy draw a vertical line.  To the right – for long wavelengths – draw a horizontal line at 0. Then at the point this vertical line crosses the Planck Curve draw a 1/x line that tends to zero at zero wavelength.  Now, take the area under the constructed curve and divide it by the area of the Planck Curve.  That’s your efficiency – for that bandgap. Different materials have different bandgaps when made into photocells. So, if you can segment the sunlight into different colors, and illuminate the right material combo – you can get really efficient conversion overall. Recently, 3M developed a new type of optical bandpass filter that efficiently segments light by color.  Its called GBO – Giant Birefringent Optics.  This material is as cheap as trash bags to make, and more reflective than silver, and can be engineered to segment light efficiently by color. So, we have all we need to create is a 10+ bandgap muli-frequency photocell array that is over 80% efficient!!! You build a concentrator made out of a pillow.  Two pieces of plastic material, one a full spectrum GBO reflector, the other transparent window, that reflects long wave radiation that can’t be converted by your photocells out of the system.  These are bonded together at the edge creating a circular assembly.  Inflate the pillow.  Now you’ve got a lightweight concentrator.  Hold the pillow in a lightweight strut, and point it at the sun.  At the focus put a fresnel lens to form a small white light beam out of the focal point energy.  In the beam place a stack of GBO optical bandpass filters – canted at 45 degree angles to the beam. To the side of each filter is a bandgap matched photocell.  Each photocell must be electrically loaded to obtain high efficiency, and the current/voltage curve for each material is distinctly different across the stack.  So, you invert each photocell’s output and run it through a special transformer stack that does this – efficiently sharing the load across each photocell in the stack. And there you have it!  A lightweight, low cost (the area of the photocells is miniscule compared to the concentrator), highly efficient solar converter. By substituting diode lasers for your photocells, you’d have a system that will be 60% efficient at generating laser energy from sunlight. You’d have ten + different colors, and each color would be beamed to a different bandgap matched reciever. By putting 10 different beam steering apparatus in front of each laser beam, you could beam energy from orbit in a very compact laser beam to hundreds or perhaps thousands of users on the ground. Allowing for another 10% loss due to atmospheric absorption of laser energy, it should be possible to build an orbiting laser power station with 50% efficiency.  The receivers on the ground are tiny because the energy in the laser beams are very intenst.  Because they’re small, they’re far easier to avoid than miles wide beams using microwaves. The advantages of space based systems over ground based systems is that they are much smaller and lighter for a given power output and in space you can deliver your power anywhere the Earth is visible.  Why space solar plants smaller tha ground based?  First, the sun is always shining in space.  No night, no clouds.  This reduces your area by 1/4th.  Also, sunlight is about twice as brilliant on orbit because there’s no air losses.  So, cut your size by half again.  Since there’s no time the system’s not working interrmediate fuel storage isn’t needed.  This means no loss of efficiency by including this step.  This also means there’s no fuel production plant and now fuel distribution system and no energy production plant – and no losses associated with these steps.  You just have transmitter and reciever. Overall, you can produce something like 60 times the power with the same collector in orbit than on the ground.  With lightweight mirrors the cost of putting stuff in orbit isn’t the big, so you still have an advantage. Recent advances in controlling laser beams using a process called 4 wave mixing – means that it is possible to create millions of beams simultaneously from a single device.  It also provides a way to deliver laser energy in a way that’s guaranteed to be absolutely safe! But, how costly would an orbiting station be?  In the 1950s NASA orbited a 45 meter diameter balloon called ECHO.  This balloon, with inflating apparatus and gas, massed about 70 kg.  It stayed inflated for over 5 years. It should be possible to build a 700 meter diameter concentrating pillow with laser beam generator/steerer – that could fit on board a modern Atlas missile. Such a satellite could deliver 276,852,618.75 watts of power continuously to any point on Earth. This translates to 2,426,890,055,962.5 watt hours of energy.  At $20 per MW-hr this translates to $48,537,801.12 per year income – with no recurring cost.   Assuming a total life cycle of 15 years can be achieved with this system, over half a billion dollars can be earned from each satellite.  Each satellite can be orbited for less than $100 million – so satellites could be justified commercially.  Note, the average cost of electricity in the US averages around $60 per MW-hr, although the cheapest power from hydroplants etc., can fall below $20 per MW-hr. The US has 800 billion watts of installed generator capacity.  At 250 million watts each, this means that 3,200 satellites of the type described would equal the current US installed capacity. Current satellite launch rate worldwide are approximately 150 per year.  Without any increased capacity in rocket production plants, launch center expansion, etc., 220 flights per year could be supported – which would be sufficient to build up 3,200 solar power sats and maintain them over 15 years. The addition of this system to our current network of power technologies would reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, moderate fuel prices, and expand the global economy.  Since the US benefits disproportionately from global expansion (and suffers likewise from a global contraction), this should benefit US economic interests. Part of the money earned by the satellite owners could be used to increase space launch capacity, improve the satellite design, and so forth, to increase the amount of energy produced in orbit – so that the entire world, within 30 years – could consume energy at US per capita rates – increasing living standards, and eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. solar pv panel installation

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The microwave idea could be dangerous.

How so?  We’re talking a total power density about 1/4 that of sunlight.  And, unlike the maser in your microwave oven (which is specifically tuned to be absorbed by water), this one would be at a frequency which is *not* absorbed by water (wouldn’t make it through the atmosphere very well otherwise!).  Can’t see what’s dangerous about it. But so many things are dangerous today. Offcouse one could place the reciever station on the moon, and then beam the power from here.

Huh? Or is there another way of sending power wireless ?

Microwave power transmission is the most practical by far, I think, at least if you need to go through the atmosphere. I read some of Arthur C. Clarkes ideas, and he had an idea of making an elevator to space. Transport would be magnetic fields. But would this be possible ?

OK, now we’re just getting silly.  That’s probably possible someday, but not in the near future.  Whereas, solar power sats with microwave transmission to ground are possible (maybe even practical) today. See solar pv panel installation

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That would be very inefficient.  The scifi vision usually has solar power satellites transmitting energy to earth as microwaves.

Where “scifi” is defined as “technology that’s feasible but has not yet been demonstrated,” yes.  In the same sort of “scifi” would be a lunar base, a terabyte storage device that fits in your pocket, and speaker-independent dictation software.  Hmm, actually most of those are harder than solar power satellites; SPS is more challenging politically and economically than technologically. Of course the only way to move a technology out of this “scifi” category is to demonstrate it.  Given our current (and coming) energy shortages, it seems to me that we should be investing in a demonstrator mission or two for this ASAP. Cheers, – Joe — |    Joseph J. Strout         Check out the Mac Web Directory:     |

solar pv panel installation

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The microwave idea could be dangerous. But so many things are dangerous today. Offcouse one could place the reciever station on the moon, and then beam the power from here. Or is there another way of sending power wireless ? I read some of Arthur C. Clarkes ideas, and he had an idea of making an elevator to space. Transport would be magnetic fields. But would this be possible ? Could you place material, that goes thru earth’s atmosphere, and out into space. If so.. it must be connected to a sattelite, that holds the whole thing up. This could be use as a reciever station, both for the transport, and also for sending power back to earth. — Regards Ingolf

solar pv panel installation Imagine that NASA sends up 5 sattelites, The 4 sattelites will orbit the sun, within the Earth’s orbit. Each sattelite is equipped with a huge solar panel, generating power for a laser. This laser is directed against the 5th recieving sattelite, orbiting Earth. When a sattelite is beyond the sun, the laser will be sent to another sattelite, which will direct(mirror/convert) the laser, against the recieveing sattelite. Doesn’t seem like a very good design to me.  Better to have just the 1 satellite, in geosynchronous orbit, with a huge solar array.  Then it beams the power to earth as a laser in the microwave range (roughly the same range used by cellular phones) — i.e., a maser. But how do you convert laser (light) back to energy ? Can you use a solar power panel again ? Visible light isn’t a very good choice for this, partly because it can’t be efficiently converted back into electricity.  But microwaves are very efficiently converted by a simple rectenna (basically, a big wire mesh). Do some web searches on “space solar power satellites” for more info solar pv panel installation.

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I would only be dangerous if you camped out on the reciever grid. The problem with the space elevator (as Clarke pointed out) was the material needed. Other wise its a great idea. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The microwave idea could be dangerous. But so many things are dangerous today. Offcouse one could place the reciever station on the moon, and then beam the power from here. Or is there another way of sending power wireless ? I read some of Arthur C. Clarkes ideas, and he had an idea of making an elevator to space. Transport would be magnetic fields. But would this be possible ? Could you place material, that goes thru earth’s atmosphere, and out into space. If so.. it must be connected to a sattelite, that holds the whole thing up. This could be use as a reciever station, both for the transport, and also for sending power back to earth. — Regards Ingolf Imagine that NASA sends up 5 sattelites, The 4 sattelites will orbit the sun, within the Earth’s orbit. Each sattelite is equipped with a huge solar panel, generating power for a laser. This laser is directed against the 5th recieving sattelite, orbiting Earth. When a sattelite is beyond the sun, the laser will be sent to another sattelite, which will direct(mirror/convert) the laser, against the recieveing sattelite. Doesn’t seem like a very good design to me.  Better to have just the 1 satellite, in geosynchronous orbit, with a huge solar array.  Then it beams the power to earth as a laser in the microwave range (roughly the same range used by cellular phones) — i.e., a maser. But how do you convert laser (light) back to energy ? Can you use a solar power panel again ? Visible light isn’t a very good choice for this, partly because it can’t be efficiently converted back into electricity.  But microwaves are very efficiently converted by a simple rectenna (basically, a big wire mesh). Do some web searches on “space solar power satellites” for more info. solar pv panel installation

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Imagine that NASA sends up 5 sattelites, The 4 sattelites will orbit the sun, within the Earth’s orbit. Each sattelite is equipped with a huge solar panel, generating power for a laser. This laser is directed against the 5th recieving sattelite, orbiting Earth. When a sattelite is beyond the sun, the laser will be sent to another sattelite, which will direct(mirror/convert) the laser, against the recieveing sattelite. But how do you convert laser (light) back to energy ? Can you use a solar power panel again ? — Regards Ingolf A wild idea…

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But how do you convert laser (light) back to energy ? Can you use a solar power panel again ?

That would be very inefficient.solar pv panel installation  The scifi vision usually has solar power satellites transmitting energy to earth as microwaves.

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Imagine that NASA sends up 5 sattelites, The 4 sattelites will orbit the sun, within the Earth’s orbit. Each sattelite is equipped with a huge solar panel, generating power for a laser. This laser is directed against the 5th recieving sattelite, orbiting Earth. When a sattelite is beyond the sun, the laser will be sent to another sattelite,solar pv panel installation  which will direct(mirror/convert) the laser, against the recieveing sattelite.

Doesn’t seem like a very good design to me.  Better to have just the 1 satellite, in geosynchronous orbit, with a huge solar array.  Then it beams the power to earth as a laser in the microwave range (roughly the same range used by cellular phones) — i.e., a maser. But how do you convert laser (light) back to energy ? Can you use a solar power panel again ?

Visible light isn’t a very good choice for this, partly because it can’t be efficiently converted back into electricity.  But microwaves are very efficiently converted by a simple rectenna (basically, a big wire mesh). Do some web searches on “space solar power satellites” for more info. solar pv panel installation

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