What impact could that amount of microwaves have on the surrounding area?
There are two modes of communication, transmit and receive. The receive array will consist of the 400 12-m antennas, for which there will be no microwave impact to the environment or other users in the same band of interest. In fact, we are keenly interested in being in an area where there is no stray radiation from other users. For the transmit array, there will be radiation from a smaller number of antennas. This non-ionizing radiation (i.e., non-nuclear) will not impact the environment, and does not exist when the transmitters are powered down. This radiation will be within the legal specifications for humans, will be confined to the main beam of radiation from the antenna (imagine a searchlight shining in the sky), and will be in frequency bands that are specifically allocated to space research. Therefore, this radiation will not endanger humans or other users of electronic equipment in the vicinity.
