SPACEBANK // ORBITAL ENERGY / IDENTIFICATION

IDENTIFICATION // FIELD INTELLIGENCE // 31 AUG 2026

PRACTICAL PHONEBOOK OF WIRELESS ENERGY

People who discovered it, proved it, standardize it, fund it, buy it and are trying to beam power across rooms, roads, battlefields and orbit.

216
people

69
TIER A

20
TOP 20 PORTRAITS

EDITORIAL SHORTLIST // TOP 20

THE PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND FIRST

FOUNDATION → SCIENCE → HARDWARE → MARKETS

#01 // FOUNDATION

Nikola Tesla

Independent inventor

The origin point: resonant high-voltage systems, Tesla coils and the ambition to transmit useful energy without wires.

ENTRY POINT
Study the patents, Colorado Springs work and Wardenclyffe as the conceptual root of the field.

GRID→RESONANCE→FIELD→RECEIVER

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#02 // SPACE SOLAR

Peter Glaser

Arthur D. Little

Turned wireless energy into a planetary infrastructure concept by proposing the Solar Power Satellite: collect sunlight in orbit and beam energy to Earth.

ENTRY POINT
His 1968 concept and 1973 patent are the historical gateway into modern SBSP finance, regulation and architecture.

SUN→GEO SOLAR→MICROWAVE→RECTENNA

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#03 // RESONANT COUPLING

Marin Soljačić

MIT

Made mid-range resonant magnetic coupling a modern engineering field and helped create the technical lineage that led to WiTricity.

ENTRY POINT
Best entry into the physics of high-Q resonators, coupling regimes and contactless power for consumer and vehicle systems.

SOURCE COIL→RESONANCE→RECEIVER COIL→LOAD

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#04 // MICROWAVE WPT

Naoki Shinohara

Kyoto University

One of the central living figures in microwave power transmission and space solar power, connecting research, IEEE standards and Japan's long-run SSPS program.

ENTRY POINT
Entry point for Japan, IEEE WPT networks, microwave rectennas and serious space-solar engineering.

DC→RF ARRAY→FREE SPACE→RECTENNA→DC

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#05 // PHASED ARRAYS

Ali Hajimiri

Caltech SSPP

Co-director of Caltech's Space Solar Power Project and the electronics lead behind MAPLE, the orbital experiment that demonstrated wireless power transfer in space.

ENTRY POINT
Entry through integrated phased arrays, distributed beamforming and extremely lightweight RF architectures.

SOLAR TILE→RF IC→PHASED ARRAY→TARGET

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#06 // SPACE STRUCTURES

Sergio Pellegrino

Caltech SSPP

Makes the giant structures physically possible: deployable, ultralight spacecraft architectures for collecting and transmitting power at scale.

ENTRY POINT
Entry into deployment mechanics, modularity and the structural bottleneck of kilometer-class energy infrastructure in orbit.

PACKED MODULE→DEPLOY→ARRAY→POWER APERTURE

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#07 // PHOTOVOLTAICS

Harry Atwater

Caltech SSPP

The photovoltaic and materials pillar of Caltech SSPP, focused on converting sunlight into electricity at extreme mass efficiency.

ENTRY POINT
Entry into the solar-conversion layer: watts per kilogram, thin-film materials and the economics of launch mass.

SUNLIGHT→PV MATERIAL→DC→TRANSMITTER

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#08 // POWER BEAMING

Paul Jaffe

DARPA / former NRL

A bridge between decades of government research and current deployment programs. His work spans space solar, microwave and optical power beaming.

ENTRY POINT
Entry into DARPA, defense use cases, safety, relays and the transition from laboratory power beaming to operational systems.

GENERATOR→BEAM→RELAY→REMOTE LOAD

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#09 // ORBITAL GRID

Andrew Rush

Star Catcher

Building an actual commercial power grid in space, using optical energy delivery to increase power available to customer spacecraft.

ENTRY POINT
Entry into orbital power-as-a-service, customer contracts, beam scheduling and the first financeable off-Earth grid business model.

POWER NODE→OPTICAL BEAM→CLIENT SOLAR PANEL→SERVICE

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#10 // MODULAR SBSP

John Bucknell

Virtus Solis

Developing modular space solar power with large orbital assemblies and microwave delivery to Earth.

ENTRY POINT
Entry into the commercial US SBSP architecture, modular launch economics and utility-scale rectenna delivery.

LEO MODULES→ASSEMBLY→MICROWAVE→GRID

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#11 // REFLECTED SUNLIGHT

Ben Nowack

Reflect Orbital

Treats sunlight itself as the transmitted energy carrier: orbital mirrors redirect natural solar radiation to selected locations on Earth.

ENTRY POINT
Entry into the simplest orbital energy derivative: no RF conversion, with difficult pointing, orbital and regulatory constraints.

SUN→ORBITAL MIRROR→SOLAR FARM / SITE

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#12 // SPACE LASER POWER

Baiju Bhatt

Cowboy Space Corporation (formerly Aetherflux)

Building a low-Earth-orbit space-solar system aimed at sending energy to Earth through infrared/optical power beaming.

ENTRY POINT
Entry combines founder capital, fast commercial execution and a defense/remote-power path to proving space solar economics.

SUN→LEO SATELLITE→IR BEAM→GROUND RECEIVER

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#13 // FAR-FIELD RF

Hatem Zeine

Ossia

Inventor and founder behind Cota, a system designed to deliver RF power to devices through ordinary indoor space while tracking receivers.

ENTRY POINT
Entry into room-scale RF power, device ecosystems, regulation and practical low-power wireless energy distribution.

RF HUB→STEERED RF→DEVICE ANTENNA→BATTERY

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#14 // HIGH-POWER RF

Chris Davlantes

Reach

Leading Reach's effort to make high-power wireless energy a deployable RF infrastructure product for autonomous systems and difficult environments.

ENTRY POINT
Entry into modern RF power beaming hardware, defense customers and distributed energy networks without physical wiring.

POWER BASE→RF BEAM→MOBILE RECEIVER→MISSION

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#15 // DYNAMIC EV

Oren Ezer

Electreon

Co-founder and CEO of one of the most visible companies building wireless charging embedded in roads for moving and stationary vehicles.

ENTRY POINT
Entry into infrastructure-scale inductive transfer, road concessions, fleet economics and public-sector deployment.

GRID→ROAD COILS→MOVING VEHICLE→BATTERY

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#16 // INDUCTIVE POWER

Grant Covic

University of Auckland / ASPIRE

A foundational academic figure in high-power inductive power transfer, especially for vehicles and dynamic charging.

ENTRY POINT
Entry into the engineering theory behind roadway and vehicle systems: compensation, alignment, interoperability and high-power magnetic coupling.

INVERTER→TRACK COIL→MAGNETIC FIELD→VEHICLE COIL

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#17 // RF COMMERCIALIZATION

Charles Greene

Powercast

A key technical executive in one of the longest-running commercial RF wireless-power companies, focused on transmitters, harvesting and product deployment.

ENTRY POINT
Entry into commercially deployed low-power RF transfer, certification, antenna design and real product economics.

RF TRANSMITTER→AIR→HARVESTER→SENSOR

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#18 // RF BUSINESS

Charles Goetz

Powercast

Commercial and strategic leadership around Powercast's RF power ecosystem and its path from components to deployed applications.

ENTRY POINT
Entry into partnerships, capital, licensing and practical commercialization of RF-delivered power.

TECH→PRODUCT→PARTNER→DEPLOYMENT

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#19 // POWER ELECTRONICS

Jeff White

Reach

Part of the leadership layer turning RF power beaming from a physics demonstration into fieldable energy infrastructure.

ENTRY POINT
Entry into systems engineering and the bridge between transmit electronics, beam control and customer hardware.

DC BUS→RF POWER→CONTROL→RECEIVER

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

#20 // OPERATIONS / SCALE

Marine Dunoguier

Reach

Represents the operational layer required to turn advanced power-beaming hardware into a repeatable company and deployable service.

ENTRY POINT
Entry into how a difficult deep-tech product is organized, manufactured and moved from prototypes toward recurring deployments.

LAB→OPERATIONS→DEPLOYMENT→NETWORK

PROFILE / SOURCE ↗

LEVEL 2 // FULL PHONEBOOK

FULL PHONEBOOK // 216+ PEOPLE

200+ people across science, hardware, standards, defense, mobility, space and capital. Compact records use initials only; search and filters operate client-side.

TIER CUS/Serbia