bicycle wheel design appears to have the highest specific power of the three designs considered. Its mass savings over the bicycle wheel with mirror will remain when support structures are included. The inflatable sphere does not require a support structure and the mass of the inflation gas is negligible compared with that of the array (see Section 8.5). The last two rows in Table 2 show that for a bicycle wheel in equatorial low Earth orbit (here, 1200 km), array masses on the order of one-half to 1^ tonnes are possible (the support structure will increase this slightly). (Lunar masses are shown for comparison, but may not be applicable to low Earth orbit SPS's.) These SPS's can be lofted in one launch with existing vehicles. The power levels shown are not continuous, but are only for times when the satellite "sees" both the sun and the rectenna. Continuous power can be provided through a combination of energy storage at the rectenna site and the deployment of many such SPS's and rectenna sites to maximize the power transmission duty cycle.
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