Comment by adrian_b

14 hours ago

You missed the point.

Nobody describes a satellite by specifying the amount of heat that it produces, but by the amount of electrical energy that it consumes.

In a communication satellite, a large fraction of the consumed electrical energy goes into the radio transmitter. Radio transmitters are very efficient and most of the consumed power is emitted as radio waves and only a very small part is converted into heat, which must be handled by the cooling system.

So in any communication satellite, a significant fraction of the consumed energy does not become heat.