I am not really sure about that. There is not only a huge money cost but also a huge energy cost when sending something into orbit, would the panels even make back the fuel spent to send them? Even if the rocket hardware is reused 100% with no serious maintenance costs (reusing costs more fuel) would the panel even make back that fuel energy alone? I did not do the math but maybe not even that. If we could put them in orbit with a space elevator almost for free the tune would be way different though.
Oh yes, there is no question at all that they would make back the fuel energy cost. In money terms the fuel is a tiny fraction of launch costs (less than 1%). In fuel energy terms it costs about 400 MJ/kg to get payload into orbit via Falcon-9.
With fairly standard terrestrial designs you can get about 5 W/kg rated power (mass including support electronics), which in space would be available nearly continuously. That gives a energy payback time of about 2.5 years. With solar power designs more suited to space use, I would be very surprised if that couldn’t be reduced to weeks.
I am not really sure about that. There is not only a huge money cost but also a huge energy cost when sending something into orbit, would the panels even make back the fuel spent to send them? Even if the rocket hardware is reused 100% with no serious maintenance costs (reusing costs more fuel) would the panel even make back that fuel energy alone? I did not do the math but maybe not even that. If we could put them in orbit with a space elevator almost for free the tune would be way different though.
Oh yes, there is no question at all that they would make back the fuel energy cost. In money terms the fuel is a tiny fraction of launch costs (less than 1%). In fuel energy terms it costs about 400 MJ/kg to get payload into orbit via Falcon-9.
With fairly standard terrestrial designs you can get about 5 W/kg rated power (mass including support electronics), which in space would be available nearly continuously. That gives a energy payback time of about 2.5 years. With solar power designs more suited to space use, I would be very surprised if that couldn’t be reduced to weeks.