example, would be a suitable launch vehicle. The Powersats would be unsupportable because the capability does not yet exist to routinely and cost- effectively support, upgrade and maintain spacecraft in orbit. • The study provides a first-order assessment of the economic viability of a Powersat system. Although it is not possible to accurately calculate the cost of a Powersat, it is possible to calculate with reasonable accuracy the financial savings from not having to launch the additional propellant (and battery mass) otherwise required by a Freedom-class station if the conventional alternative of adding solar arrays was followed. Hence, in the simplest sense, if some of these user-savings can be used as the revenues to pay for the full cost of a Powersat, such a Powersat would be deemed “economic.” • It was determined that over a period of 10 years the maximum total revenues available to Powersat operators would be in the region of 2 to 4 billion AUs for a Shuttle-supported space station on the scale of Freedom. If the proposed Ariane 5 Transfer Vehicle was used to support such a station, the maximum revenues would be around 1.5-3 billion AUs. • For the Shuttle-supported space station, the estimated revenues might be considered somewhat high as annual Shuttle costs are effectively independent of launch rates. However, other issues must be considered. For example, because the Shuttle is limited to about 8 missions per year, the maximum power level to which a station can be expanded with its own solar arrays would be obviously constrained. In the case of Freedom, expanding the power level beyond the current 56 kW level could be precluded simply because the Shuttle would not be able to launch the additional station-keeping propellant, batteries, and so on. Similar conclusions are likely for an Ariane V-supported space station.
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