ORBITAL
ENERGY
Contents
Four architectures
Orbital solar collectors convert electricity to RF energy and beam it to a ground rectenna. The utility-scale path pursued by several long-horizon programs.
Near-infrared transmission uses smaller apertures and receivers, with tighter pointing and atmospheric constraints.
Power is generated on one spacecraft and delivered optically to another. Energy becomes an orbital service purchased on demand.
Mirrors redirect sunlight to existing solar farms, extending useful generation around dawn, dusk or night.
Who is building it
Caltech SSPP
MAPLE demonstrated wireless power transfer in space and detected transmitted power on Earth.
Space Solar
UK company developing the CASSIOPeiA architecture for grid-scale power.
Overview Energy
Developing optical space solar power and future contracted delivery.
Star Catcher
Building a space-to-space optical energy grid for spacecraft.
Reflect Orbital
Developing orbital reflectors to extend sunlight at terrestrial solar sites.
China / Xidian / CAST
Long-horizon space solar power work plus increasingly capable ground microwave transmission experiments.
JAXA
Decades of microwave and laser wireless power transmission research.
Virtus Solis
Modular orbital solar arrays with microwave delivery.
Aetherflux + AFRL / NRL
Commercial and government power-beaming programs aimed at remote and space applications.
People shaping the field
The evidence ladder
Caltech has crossed the orbital power-transfer threshold. Commercial actors are beginning to cross into contracted future demand. A mature continuously operating utility-scale orbital energy market does not yet exist.
The SpaceBank layer
Once orbital energy becomes measurable, schedulable and contractible, finance can attach to future delivered energy, beam time, receiver capacity, orbital generation rights and verified link performance.
Finance generation capacity against contracted future orbital kWh.
Reserve time, geometry and power on an orbital transmission network.
Meter energy at the receiver and settle against verified delivery.
Finance spacecraft, receivers and revenue streams against mission and performance risk.
When machines can buy energy from machines, power transmission, telemetry, settlement and finance become one autonomous market.
Primary source ledger
- Caltech Space Solar Power Project / MAPLE.
- Space Solar / CASSIOPeiA.
- Overview Energy technical and commercial materials.
- Star Catcher Industries technology and customer announcements.
- Reflect Orbital technical and regulatory materials.
- Xidian University / Chinese microwave power transmission research.
- JAXA Space Solar Power Systems research.
- Virtus Solis architecture.
- US Naval Research Laboratory power-beaming research.
- US Air Force Research Laboratory SSPIDR / Arachne.
- ESA SOLARIS studies.
- Aetherflux public technical materials.