Scientists claim they are the first to send space-based solar power to Earth

The idea of ​​transmission of solar energy from space is not a new one. In 1968, a NASA engineer named Peter Glaser produced the first concept design for a solar-powered satellite. But now, 55 years later, it seems that scientists have indeed conducted a successful experiment. A team of Caltech researchers announced Thursday that their space-borne prototype, called the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD-1), collected sunlight, converted it into electricity and sent it to Caltech’s Pasadena Sent to microwave receivers installed on the roof of the complex. , The experiment also proves that the setup launched on January 3 is capable of surviving the harsh environment of space as well as space travel.

“To the best of our knowledge, no one has demonstrated wireless energy transfer in space, even with expensive rigid structures. We are doing it with flexible lightweight structures and our own integrated circuits. This is a first,” Thursday said Ali Hajimiri, professor of electrical engineering and medical engineering and co-director of Caltech’s Space Solar Power Project (SSPP), in a press release published on.

The experiment — known in full as the Microwave Array for Power-Transfer Low-Orbit Experiment (or MAPLE for short) — is one of three research projects being conducted on SSPD-1. According to Caltech the effort involved two separate receiver arrays and lightweight microwave transmitters with custom chips. In its press release, the team said that the transmission setup was designed to minimize the amount of fuel needed to send them into space, and that the design also needed to be flexible enough so that the transmitters could be folded onto the rocket.

Space-based solar power has long been a holy grail in the scientific community. Although expensive in its current form, the technology holds the promise of potentially unlimited renewable energy, with solar panels in space able to collect sunlight regardless of the time of day. The use of microwaves to transmit power would also mean that cloud cover would not interfere, as nikki notes.

Caltech’s Space Solar Power Project (SSSP) is hardly the only team attempting to make space-based solar power a reality. Late last month, days before Caltech’s announcement, JAXA, Japan’s space agency, announced a public-private partnership that aims to send solar power to space by 2025. The leader of that project, a professor at Kyoto University, is working on the space. Solar based since 2009. Japan also had its breakthrough nearly a decade ago in 2015, when JAXA scientists transmitted 1.8 kilowatts of electricity—enough energy to power an electric kettle—over 50 meters to a wireless receiver.

The Space Solar Power Project was established in 2011. In addition to MAPLE, SSPD-1 is being used to assess which cell types are most effective at surviving the conditions of space. The third experiment is known as the DOLCE (Deployable On-Orbit Ultralight Composite Experiment), a six-by-six-foot structure that “demonstrates the modular spacecraft’s architecture, packaging scheme and deployment mechanisms,” according to Caltech. It has not been installed yet.