For the purpose of this analysis, we will make a baseline assumption of 10 ground stations required, noting that this does not allow for continuous coverage of low orbiting spacecraft. Near Term The principle unknown here is the amount of available power that will be purchased. In the near term this may be very limited (but may grow in the mid term as satellite and station designs take advantage of the service that is offered). On the basis of the market analysis in section 3.1.1, we will assume (optimistically) in the near term a total baseload demand for the system as a whole at 50kW delivered continuously. This would therefore generate revenue at a cost of $1000/kWh of $438M per year. The accuracy of these figures is quite clearly far from reliable in absolute terms. However, we may use these approximate figures to calculate the Net Present Values for the commercial project. We will consider a 5 year development and construction period, followed by a 15 year operational period, but for simplicity's sake assume all investment costs arise in equal proportions in the first 5 years. Investment costs are development cost and ground station cost times number of ground stations. First revenue occurs at the end of the 5th year of the program The formula used for NPV in full is: where DC is the development cost and GCtot is the total ground stations cost. The NPV of ft project, and its sensitivity to variation of the assumed parameters between low and high values, shown in Table 11.1 below. Table 11.1 NPV - Near Term Ground to Space Laser It can be seen that with the baseline parameters chosen, the project makes a $1B loss over its 20 year duration. As noted above, however, less emphasis should be given to the absolute value of this model's output NPV, than to a consideration of the sensitivities it highlights. First of all, it can be noted that the most sensitive parameter is amount of power sold in kilowatts (average). If as much as 200kW could be sold the venture goes into net value of $3.6B. If only lOkW are sold, the net loss increases from $1B to nearly $2B. The near term markets, as identified in section 3.1.1, are extremely limited. The sale of 50kW on a continuous average basis is itself extremely optimistic, noting that all inclined low altitude orbits are in line of sight of equatorial ground stations for only a small amount of time. On this basis, it is considered justifiable to state that near term implementation of ground to space lasing is not commercially viable.
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