Laser Transfer Vehicle for Space Solar Pumped Laser Power Station

摘要

Laser propulsion has very unique advantage of producing exhausting gas (ions) of very high velocity. Specific impulse from laser plasma could easily exceed 10,000 seconds that reduces the current propellant consumption rate on space borne thrusters significantly. The use of such laser propulsion system is proposed and investigated toward transportation system for the SSPS construction. It has been shown that the LOTV system is compatible to the current reference model that is a unit of SSPS with 10-MW output power can be used as a power source for such vehicle. Rather preferable performance can be expected such as payload ration and traveling period of more than 90% and less than 10 days from LEO to GEO.