IV. PMER STATION A. SYSTEM ANALYSIS IV-A-1. Efficiencies L. E. Livingston Spacecraft Design Div. Three estimates were made of the efficiency of each step in the power collection and transmission process: a minimum, which could be achieved by 1995 with virtual certainty; a maximum, the best that could realistically be expected under the most favorable circumstances; and a nominal or reference, representing the value most likely to be achieved. These are summarized in figure IV-A-1-1, together with the corresponding power levels at each stage for 5 GW DC output from the power interface. Since these estimates were required for subsystem sizing, they were made early in the study. Subsequent work (cf. section IV-A-2) has changed some estimates by several percentage points; these are shown in figure IV-A-1-1 for comparison. However, the "initial reference" data in figure IV-A-1-1 have been used, for the sake of consistency, in all sizing exercises. These changes would reduce the total solar input, and consequently the total array area, about 10 percent from the example configurations discussed in the rest of this report. Insufficient time was available to repeat all the subsystem calculations in detail, and no attempt was made to do so.
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