and varying meteorological conditions can be thought of as moving the brightness distribution profile up or down with respect to the threshold values. For example, with either brighter satellites or less favorable weather conditions that were assumed in the Briefing Document, the profile is moved upward, thereby substantially increasing the amount of the sky in the different zones. Unfortunately, the total area at the contaminated zone is not directly proportional to satellite brightness. Because the brightness profile is so sharply peaked, even relatively large reductions (by factors of 2 or 3) in the brightness of the individual satellites would not greatly reduce the size of the contaminated zone. Alternatively, the relatively broad wings of the intensity profile mean that corresponding increases in the apparent magnitudes of the satellites will result in quite large increases in the size of the contaminated zone. Associated SPS Structures A major deficiency in the Reference System document is the lack of specific details of associated SPS structures, such as the low Earth orbit (LEO) docking areas for the Heavy Launch Vehicles (HLV). Because of this deficiency, it was impossible to even begin to estimate how bright any of these associated structures must be. Two factors dominated the discussion of the LEO and other structures, both of which stemmed from the differences between the appearance of objects in geostationary orbits (GEO) and those in LEO. First, objects in LEO are closer than those in GEO and their apparent 2 size is correspondingly greater. An object that has a surface area of 1 km 2 and is in an 800-km-high orbit has the same apparent size as the 55-km solar blanket. Their relative brightness will then be determined by geometry and albedo. One difference is that the LEO object is only illuminated through the portion of its orbit that is not in the Earth's shadow. Another difference between GEO and LEO objects poses a particular problem for astronomical observations. As discussed later, since the power satellites themselves are located in GEO, their position in the sky is fixed. As a result,
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