MAU on a shared Ariane 4 or Ariane 5. Eurospace does not believe such funding is realistic under the current economic climate, nor does the relative immaturity of the Powersat concept merit such an expense. Further, even if funding were to be found, the time over which the experiment would be conducted might be on the order of 10 years or more. Such a high-cost demonstrator will be needed at some point during the development of Powersats. However, a much less expensive and quicker demonstrator is needed first if the Powersat program is to continue at all into the future. Whereas a 100 MAU demonstrator program would be all but impossible to fund today, a demonstrator costing less than 10 MAU, for example, may not be. Further, an inexpensive demonstrator program could, in theory at least, be undertaken relatively rapidly, thus providing a quick return of data necessary for preparing the groundwork for more ambitious Powersat experiments immediately thereafter. Therefore, the rationale behind the Powersat demonstrator work in this study is to determine the feasibility of building an inexpensive, but technically meaningful demonstrator, with the view to using it as a stepping stone to later, more advanced concepts. Equally, the demonstrator would be used as a highly visible tool for educating the space community on the potential of Powersats.
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