Generation of plasma waves in the ionospheric plasma by powerful nonmonochromatic microwave beams

A mechanism of ionospheric plasma wave generation by non-monochromatic microwave beams is proposed based on the mixing of the beams' different spectral components. The published projects of solar power satellites are analyzed, as well as the experiments on microwave energy transmission through the ionosphere. It is shown that in all these cases the microwave intensity is large enough to create intensive plasma waves provided the microwave spectrum width is of the order of resonance plasma frequencies.