PaddleSat Optical Charging Station in Space

Abstract

This work investigates the feasibility and design trade-offs for a companion spacecraft, or PaddleSat, to charge a host spacecraft by wirelessly transmitting power using a directional laser system. The primary goal of the PaddleSat is to supplement power on a host spacecraft to reduce the requirements for onboard power systems of the host spacecraft or extend mission lifetimes. System performance estimates, link budget calculations, optical transmission hardware and link analysis, design tradeoffs between beam divergence, optical efficiency, and relative orbital control requirements are examined.