An orbital satellite testing the technological feasibility of one day harvesting and transmitting solar energy down to Earth has concluded its year long mission, and researchers are eager to dive into the results. According to Caltech’s mission recap released today, engineers behind the Solar Space Power Demonstrator (SSPD-1) consider all three of 110-pound prototype’s onboard tools a success and believe the project “will help chart the future of space solar power.” That future, however, is still potentially decades away, if such projects are funded.
Launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in early January 2023, the SSPD-1 contained a trio of experiments: First, its Deployable on-Orbit ultraLight Composite Experiment (DOLCE) investigated the durability and efficacy lightweight, origami-inspired solar panel structures, while ALBA (Italian for “dawn”) tested 32 different photovoltaic cell designs to determine which may best be suited for space. At the same time, the Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment (MAPLE) tested microwave transmitters meant to convey solar power harvested in orbit back to Earth.
[Related: A potentially revolutionary solar harvester just left the planet.]
Perhaps most importantly, MAPLE successfully demonstrated for the first time ever that solar power can be collected by photovoltaic cells and transmitted down to Earth via a microwave beam. Over the course of eight more months, SSPD-1 team members purposefully ramped up MAPLE’s stress tests, eventually leading to a drop in transmission capabilities. Researchers then reproduced the issue in a laboratory setting, eventually determining that complex electrical-thermal interactions and the wear-down of individual array components were to blame.
Ali Hajimiri, co-director of Caltech’s Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) and the Bren Professor of Electrical Engineering and…
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