Overview

1. Mirrorswarm uses SI units and Earth time (day,hour,year,kg,s,mol,cd,Ampere,Kelvin,m). E-notation with no spaces is acceptable.
2. The host planet Mercury ("Host") is low-gravity which will help get the swarm into orbit. It is close to the the swarm, between the host and the sun.
3. Avogadro says there are 6E23 atoms in every mol of material. A mol of the elements of the host is 54g.
4. The raw material for the swarm and its factories is elements. These elements will be extracted from the host. There are fewer then a hundred elements needed.
5. The construction material for the swarm and its factories is the millibot. This is a general purpose machine possibly consisting of fewer than 1E20 atoms (0.25g). Teams will specify the performance requirements and design of the millibots.
6. The 1% of the host which is available as raw material has a mass of 3.3E21kg and makes up to 1.3E25 millibots with 0.1% refinery efficiency.
7. There may be four generations of mirrors...
   • The fab has to take an energy generating capacity which may involve taking first-gen mirrors, or maybe just solar panels.
   • Second-gen ground mirrors and planet-orbit railgun are ground-manufactured to ramp up energy.
   • Third-gen mirrors are launched as 1-mirror factory packs and made in zero-G to swarm in Mercury orbit, powering just the site which makes the escape-velocity railgun.
   • Fourth-gen mirrors are launched as 1-mirror factory packs and made in zero-G to swarm in Solar orbit, powering the whole system. We have a likely weight limit of 20 tonnes on each.
8. The site needs receivers to translate light to usable power. Forms of distribution around the site could include microwave/WiFi, light, electric, hydraulic. Some components also definitely need a power store - any form of railgun, for example.