Such a short experiment would probably not justify its high development cost Perhaps a more suitable approach would be to place Eureca in a Earthpointing mode and deploy the subsatellite against the velocity vector. This would increase the experiment time to an hour or so. Alternatively, the subsatellite could be deployed along the gravity gradient using a tether system similar to that proposed for the ASAP demonstartor. The experiment could be conducted for as long as necessary and at a range of distances before either cutting the tether or reeling it back in again. Using a tether during the course of the mission could be very disruptive to other experiments, especially those needing a high microgravity environment The same is true for placing Eureca in an Earth-pointing mode. However, this problem would be minimised if the Powersat experiment was performed as one of the first activities of the Eureca-3 mission, shortly before the other experiments are started. Alternatively, it could be performed during the 3-month long waiting period before Shuttle collection. Such an experiment configuration is analogous to that proposed by ISAS for the METS SFU demonstrator (See Section 7.2, Figure 7.2-2). Relatively simple sensors and telemetry systems on the subsatellite could radio back to Eureca data on the received power levels. In addition, or alternatively, it might be possible to equip the sub-satellite with “lights” (e.g. light-emitting diodes) spread across the surface. These lights would illuminate differentially, depending on the accuracy of the beam pointing, incident power and separation distance, and would be observed by the CCD camera located on Eureca. (This is analogous to the Goldstone Experiment performed in the US in the 1975.) This camera would also be useful for observing the deployment and possible inflation of the subsatellite. All data from the experiment would have to be recorded by the Eureca Data Handling subsystem for later down-loading.
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