Polar Rosette

Completed in 2140, the Very Large Scale Photovoltaic Orbital Array (VLSPOA), usually known as the Polar Rosette feeds Earth's Global Electricity Distribution System and provides virtually free power to approximately 95% of the planet's population.

The brain child of Yoshino Hibino, who died many years before the project was started, it consists of a circular array of high density silicon solar panels manufactured by a completely automated process based in the Sea of Tranquility on Earth's Moon. The process, which was usually unmanned, utilised the high natural concentration of silicon in the moon's soil. The finished panels were launched from the moon's low gravity well into a high level Earth orbit and subsequently 'strung' together using monofilament and fitted with gravity stabilisers. The resulting array, or 'rosette' of panels forms a permanently sun facing circle of photovoltaic cells and beams the energy down to the north and south polar collector stations over which the array is permanently geostationary.

At the poles, the electricity is converted and distributed evenly around the planet through a consolidated international grid using intermittent booster stations which are also powered by solar energy backed-up by pumped reservoirs to ensure system stability during poor local weather conditions and at night. It is worth noting that the first 500 Km of undersea cables originating from the polar nodes were originally maintained at 45°K to make them superconducting.

VLSPOA along with the Gravity Drive and matter transmission (EMTI) technologies were almost entirely responsible for saving the planet from the disastrous side effects of burning fossil fuel as a main energy source. See Global Warming.

First commercial use April 22 2092, by which time it was capable of supplying power to more than 200,000,000 homes across Europe, Japan and North America (the principal investors in the project). The Rosette had recovered all of it's construction costs even before it's completion more than 45 years later and was trans-nationalised in 2180 when the World Council first took control over planet-wide energy policy. The ongoing maintenance costs are relatively low as all of the repair functions are automated and the original design allowed for greater than 3000% redundancy. It is a testimony to the robustness of the construction that when the great, and final Geminids meteor shower of 2105 passed through the Earth's orbit almost entirely destroying three of the array's panels, there was no disruption to the power supply at all. Solar wind ionisation, however, is the greatest erosion factor, requiring all panels to be routinely replaced on a 15 year basis.

Largest man-made machine made artifact in the Solar system.