This sounds like something a supervillain would devise. If that villain wanted to provide cheap and clean power around the globe, then he could launch a series of three-kilometer-wide solar arrays to beam the sun's energy to the surface. The price tag is also a giddy guess from popular fiction: One hundred million dollars. This is a real Caltech project, funded almost a decade ago largely by one donor.Since at least 2013, the Space-based Solar Power Project was in existence. This project has received their first donation from Donald Bren and Brigitte Bren. Donald Bren, chairman of Irvine Company, is also on the Caltech board. He heard about space-based solar in Popular Science and proposed funding a university research project. Since then, he has donated over $100M. The source of these funds was kept secret until Caltech made it public this week.This idea is born naturally out of the limitations of renewable energy. Although solar power is everywhere on the surface, it is highly dependent upon the weather, season, day, and hour. Even in ideal conditions, no solar panel can operate at its full potential. This makes it difficult to transfer and store energy in a smart grid. There is no solar panel anywhere on Earth.However, a solar panel placed in orbit may be exposed to almost all of the sun's light, without any reduction in power due to light passing through the earth's protective atmosphere or magnetosphere.This ambitious project represents a revolutionary approach to large-scale solar energy harvesting on the Earth. It overcomes the intermittency of the Earth's sun and provides energy storage. Harry Atwater, SSPP researcher at Caltech, stated in the Caltech release.You would have to gather enough energy to make it worthwhile. There must be a way to send that energy down to surface without losing most of it to the protective layers and also without burning anything in its path.This project would not have been possible without Brens support. The team has been looking at these fundamental questions systematically for the past ten years. Although trying to complete the work while rotating through grad students and scrounging grants might have been impossible, the team was able to hire long-term researchers and overcome any early obstacles.The group has produced dozens of published studies and prototypes (which you can peruse here), including the lightest solar collector-transmitter made by an order of magnitude, and is now on the verge of launching its first space-based test satellite.According to Ali Hajimiri, co-director of this project, "Launch" is expected to take place in Q1 2023. There are several space-based demonstrators to verify key technologies, including wireless power transfer at long distance, lightweight flexible solar photovoltaics and flexible space structures.Although these will be very small tests (6 feet in diameter), the goal is to create something much larger. It will be larger than any other spacecraft currently on the planet.Hajimiri stated that the final system will consist of many deployable modules flying in close formation and operating in sync with each other. Each module measures several tens to meters in length and can be expanded by adding additional modules as needed.The concept calls for a structure that is at least 5-6 kilometers in size. It would not block out the stars, but it would be far enough away from Earth. Direct, steerable microwave transmission would transmit power to the receivers at the surface. One or two of these satellites could transmit power continuously to any place on the planet.That vision is, of course, the goal, but it will take many, many years before it happens. Don't mistakenly think of it as a single, ambitious goal. This idea has led to advances in solar cells and flexible space-based structures as well as wireless power transfer. Each of these can be used in other areas. Although the vision might sound like science fiction, science is moving forward in a solid way.Bren, for his part seems happy to just advance the ball on a task he regards as important that may not otherwise be attempted.He said that he has been studying the potential applications of space-based solar power for many years as a student. Caltech's world-class scientists are what I support. My passion lies in harnessing the sun's natural power for everyone.You can check the SSPP before launch.
