maintenance that is performed at the satellites, and 2) the refurbishment of defective satellite components at a maintenance depot on the GEO Base. A crew of maintenance workers are delivered to the GEO Base twice a year. These crew members are then delivered to an operational satellite along with some maintenance equipment and some replacement parts. Over a 3i day period, defective components are removed and replaced with new ones. The defective components are returned to the GEO Base. The crew, mobile maintenance equipment, and replacements parts move on to the next satellite. They repeat these maintenance operations as they visit 20 satellites over a 90 day period. The crew and equipment are returned to the GEO Base at the end of their tour and the crew is returned to Earth. At the GEO Base, the defective components are delivered to maintenance modules. These parts are individually tested to diagnose their fault conditions and then they are sent through a production line where they are torn down to the extent required to replace the defective components. The components are then reassembled and tested. They are then returned to storage for eventual delivery to the satellites for reuse. The space crews work on a 6-day-per-week, 10-hours-per-day work schedule. They are returned to Earth after 90 days and are replaced by crew members who have been on Earth for 90 days. Each of the operational satellites beam power back to its ground receiving station where the microwave energy is converted to electrical energy which is then delivered into the utility power grid. All of these operations are coordinated and controlled by operations control people, facilities, and systems. Table 1 shows our estimate of the total number of people who will be directly involved in the SPS program during this 12th year of production. Reference: Solar Power Satellite System Definition Study, Vol. Ill, Phase II Final Report, Operations and Systems Synthesis, (Contract NAS9-15636), The Boeing Aerospace Company, DI80-25461-3, December 1979.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==