The ablative, quasi‐steady expansion of the spherical coronal plasma produced by irradiating an overdense pellet by a high‐intensity laser pulse, is studied for large ion charge numberZi. The entire structure of the flow and its changes as the laser power is increased, are determined. The instantaneous powerWrequired to generate a given ablation pressurePaand pellet radiusraat any time is determined in terms ofZi, ion massmi, and critical density; the mass ablation rate is also found. If the time lawPa(t) and (consequently)ra(t) for a desired optimal compression of the pellet are determined independently, the results allow one to obtain the laser power historyW(t) =W[Pa(t), ra(t), Zi, mi, @qLnc]. For a critical radius much larger thanra, most of the energy flows outward; this seems to invalidate known simple estimates of the relationW(Pa).