zlacker

And in geostationary, the planet hardly ever gets in the way. They get full sun 99.5% of the year.

>>Dennis+(OP)
Boosting to geostationary orbit knocks a big chunk out of your payload capacity. Falcon 9 expendable will do 22 tons to LEO and about 8 tons to GTO.

>>XorNot+g71
That's still a smaller ratio than the ~4X gain in irradiance over LEO. But if you're doing it at scale you could use orbital tugs with ion drives or something, and use much less fuel per transfer.

It's probably not competitive at all without having fully reusable launch rockets, so the cost to LEO is a lot lower.

>>Dennis+uR1
8 tons over 22 is a little over 1/3rd the original payload to LEO. If 4x the solar generation potential (not irradiance - the sun is not 4x brighter in space at Earth's orbital radius) is the reward, that's putting an incredible premium on a 3x multiplier on launch costs per kg (at minimum - likely higher, you're also inheriting a worse radiation environment).

But those two parameters are not equals: 3x the cost per kg is a much higher number then 4x the solar power.

>>XorNot+SF3
My response is already contained in my comment above, in the sentences after the first.