The Ionosphere and the Upper Atmosphere
Does a powerful microwave beam passing through the ionosphere heat or disturb it?
Chapter summary
probably not measurably at the intensities proposed, but this is one of the effects regulators will want tested.
Key takeaways
- 1
The ionosphere, from about 60 to 1,000 km altitude, is a layer of charged particles that reflects and absorbs radio waves at low frequencies.
- 2
At 2.45 or 5.8 GHz the ionosphere is mostly transparent, and the energy absorbed is small.
- 3
Studies in the 1970s and 1980s, using ground-based heating facilities that beam high-power radio waves upward, found that effects appear mainly at lower frequencies and much higher intensities in the ionosphere than a space solar beam would produce.
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