of this effort are given in Ref. 4.2.14. This program is broken down into five work areas: e Simulation of telecommunications effects resulting from SPS operation © Experimental studies of the physics of ionospheric heating © Studies of the theory of ionospheric heating © SPS impact on the pilot and power beams © Development of advanced ground-based heater facilities The efforts to be undertaken in these areas form a coordinated and cohesive program of providing the necessary data to determine the environmental impact of the operation of a microwave power transmission system on the ionosphere. 4.2.5.2 Vehicle Effluent Effects The data to be developed by the atmosphere sciences tasks for the SPS concept study (see Section 3), including two dimensional modeling and subsequent testing during launches of large vehicles, will provide usable temporal and spatial transient and stabilization information for initial assessment of the communications degradation. A limited communications and sounder testing exercise is being planned during the shuttle launches to specifically measure F-layer depletion and stabilization transients (temporal and spatial) and confirm anticipated HF communications link reductions in availability. The possible utilization of existing OTH radar facilities to assist in tracking depleted volume characteristics will be investigated. 4.2.6 Preliminary Assessment 4.2.6.1 Ionosphere Heating An initial experiment designed to produce and observe electron thermal runaway in the lower ionosphere was conducted at the Arecibo Observatory from June 4-13, 1978. The 430 MHz incoherent scatter radar was used both as a heater and as a diagnostic. The transmitter is capable of pulses up to 10 ms in length with a peak pulse power of 2.5 MW. This system yields a peak power flux of approximately 18 W/m^ within a 300-meter beam at 100-km altitude. When the freqency is scaled to that of the solar power satellite, the
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