New Mars Forums
You are not logged in.
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
Announcement
#26 2025-01-16 08:27:49
- Calliban
- Member
- From: Northern England, UK
- Registered: 2019-08-18
- Posts: 4,406
Re: SPS Solar Power Satellite Space Based
Void, to my knowledge, no one has ever been annoyed by your contributions. The only thing about this board that is less than ideal is that it has too few members to really function as a forum and raise new ideas. There are a mere handful of us. We need to do something about that.
The idea of using solar power for cooling is a good one. Heat can be stored in large volumes very cheaply. A solar powered heat pump could for example, be used to make ice for data centre cooling on its cold side and produce warm water for district heating on its hot side. Both forms of heat energy can be stored, so this is a good way of using intermittent energy.
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
Offline
Like button can go here
#27 2025-01-16 12:42:48
- Void
- Member
- Registered: 2011-12-29
- Posts: 9,922
Re: SPS Solar Power Satellite Space Based
Well, I see. A cool Maritime Climate might be ideal for that. Who could that be?
So, district heating, heated swimming pools, and tropical greenhouses as well. You can become energy libertines. For shame! What would Gretta think?
Ending Pending 
Last edited by Void (2025-01-16 12:48:07)
Be careful what you wish for.
Offline
Like button can go here
#28 2025-09-16 12:19:08
- tahanson43206
- Moderator
- Registered: 2018-04-27
- Posts: 26,036
Re: SPS Solar Power Satellite Space Based
The link below points to a short BBC video about solar power. The video is for a general audience and would (probably) not be of interest to NewMars, except for animation of an energy collection system I have not seen before:
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0ly0hnd … c_team=crm
The idea of a helix design for the solar power collection subsystem and the microwave generator, along with large photon mirrors is interesting and I hope more is published about the practicality of the idea.
(th)
Offline
Like button can go here
#29 2025-12-16 11:27:07
- tahanson43206
- Moderator
- Registered: 2018-04-27
- Posts: 26,036
Re: SPS Solar Power Satellite Space Based
This is a follow up to a report by Void about a spinoff from Vast that is dedicated to space based solar power.
https://spacenews.com/overview-energy-d … lar-power/
The article is written by Jeff Foust.
It only contains one error, (that I caught) which I assume was generated by someone at the company and Jeff apparently did not catch it.
(th)
Offline
Like button can go here
#30 2026-09-28 18:26:44
- tahanson43206
- Moderator
- Registered: 2018-04-27
- Posts: 26,036
Re: SPS Solar Power Satellite Space Based
The article at the link below is about an interesting variation on the space solar power theme. The startup in focus has secured funding to design systems to send power from one satellite to another, and (apparently) the will be sending a test package to space soon.
The comments at the end of the article both worry about such systems being used for military purposes.
This would definitely be a case of "dual use" technology.
https://www.wired.com/story/space-laser … ng-energy/
Sep 28, 2026 7:00 AM
Space Lasers Are About to Get Their First Real Test Generating Energy
Startup Star Catcher is launching a system that, if successful, would be the first time energy has been beamed between two separate spacecraft.
Courtesy of Star CatcherGoogle, SpaceX, and a host of startups are all planning to build data centers in space. But for those plans to work, they’ll need power. Lots of it.
Star Catcher, a startup based in Jacksonville, Florida, aims to provide it by concentrating the sun’s energy and using lasers to beam it to satellites’ waiting solar panels. The company is preparing to launch its prototype system aboard a SpaceX rocket this week that will transmit energy to another satellite in orbit.
Don't just keep up. Get ahead—with our biggest stories, handpicked for you each day.If it’s successful, it would be the first time lasers have beamed energy between two untethered objects in space. But the idea of generating solar power in space goes back decades.
It showed up in a 1941 sci-fi piece by Isaac Asimov, and NASA studied it in the 1970s. “Launching large amounts of hardware into orbit was extremely expensive, so generating power in space and transmitting it elsewhere rarely made practical sense,” says Hanieh Fattahi, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light. But now, falling launch costs are making it more feasible to have orbital industries that will be able to provide such energy.
“There isn't a power grid in space,” says chief executive officer and cofounder Andrew Rush. “Everybody just goes on these little camping trips.”
Star Catcher’s solution is an array of what it calls power nodes that serve as both a solar power plant and power line. To generate energy, the firm’s satellites gather sunlight using a collection of lenses and refine it into the wavelengths of light that Star Catcher says can provide up to 10 times more power than diffuse sunlight. It then emits a laser beam—think of it as an ethereal transmission cable—that can be directed at satellites in need of power. That promises more uptime and, Rush says, more profit for satellite operators.
In a world where launches cost thousands of dollars per kilogram of weight, reducing battery size while adding more useful instruments—or in the case of space data centers, GPUs—can pay dividends.
Space Lasers Are About to Get Their First Real Test Generating Energy
Courtesy of Star CatcherThere’s clear interest in what Star Catcher is offering. The company announced a $65 million round of funding earlier this year, and it won a $30 million award from the US Space Force. The company has also inked 40 letters of intent from prospective buyers and, more importantly, 10 power purchase agreements, which are long-term contracts. There’s also a sign of optimism for space-based industries launching on the same SpaceX mission as Star Catcher’s system: Google’s first attempt at a space-based data center is also hitching a ride on the rocket.
The satellite launching this week, dubbed Protostar, is a small-scale version of the satellites Star Catcher hopes to eventually deploy that Rush says will provide “meaningful commercial power provisioning services in orbit before the end of the decade.” But it’ll be the first time the entire system comes together in space, with the company using its tracking technology to beam energy to an untethered cubesat that’s launching at the same time.“Part of this demonstration is testing how much power is received by the cubesat as it moves away from Protostar and comparing that against our models,” says Rush.
The company has done a space-based test of its technology that would allow it to track satellites it’s transmitting energy to, and it set a record last year for beaming power on the ground, besting a mark set by DARPA.
That test delivered more than 1 kilowatt of power to off-the-shelf solar panels—enough juice to power a microwave. That means there’s a ways to go to power telecommunications satellites, let alone space-based data centers, but Rush says the proof-of-concept on the ground is what gives him confidence that the company is ready to see what it can do in orbit. He says Star Catcher is still in the “crawl” phase but on its way to walking, then running.
This won’t be the first test of lasers in space. The Naval Research Laboratory completed an experiment in 2023, operating a space laser to generate power for 100 days. However, the system was a single unit, and the beam traveled less than 5 feet. (If Star Catcher is working on crawling, then this experiment was akin to tummy time.) That laser only operated with 11 percent efficiency, an issue Fattahi says will need to be overcome. She also says tracking systems, managing heat, and ensuring equipment can operate in the cold vacuum of space for years also need to be teased out to make space-based lasers economically viable.
Researchers have also explored other forms of space-based solar, including successful tests by Caltech scientists to transmit solar power via microwaves back to Earth. That technique can transmit more energy, but it requires a massive receiver to harness it, whereas lasers can hit a much smaller target.
“As we grow the infrastructure in space,” Rush says of Star Catcher’s satellites, “we begin to make it more economical to put larger and more capable industry in space. I view what we're building as transformational for the space sector as reusable launch vehicles.”
Comments
WIREDGIRL1
3 hours ago
What could possibly go wrong? Don't simple laser pointers have the ability to affect piloting commercial aircraft already?
ReactionReply
DC_DK
Question11 hours ago
What will prevent these space lasers from being used as weapons? What's the difference between their beams and those for a military application?
ReactionReply
Brian Kahn is a senior editor for WIRED’s science section. He has covered climate, weather, and energy for nearly 15 years. Prior to WIRED, he ran climate tech coverage for Bloomberg, where he edited award-winning journalism and ran the Green Daily flagship newsletter. You can reach him securely on Signal ... Read More
(th)
Offline
Like button can go here