Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Credit: Andreas Treuer via ESA

The European Space Agency is proposing a research and development program to further explore the concept and critical technologies to make feasible Space-Based Solar Power.

The effort is called SOLARIS – a step in pursuit of detailing the potential of Space-Based Solar Power – providing Earth with clean energy from space.

Credit: ESA

The SOLARIS initiative would tackle the needed technical advancements in areas such as in-space manufacturing and robotic assembly, high-efficiency photovoltaics, high power electronics and radio frequency beam forming.

Further research to confirm benign effects of low-power microwaves on human and animal health and compatibility with aircraft and satellites would also be undertaken, according to an ESA statement.

Credit: ESA

Global interest

As a program proposal, SOLARIS comes at a point when global interest in Space-Based Solar Power is at its highest for decades, with in-orbit demonstrations being prepared in the US, China and Japan.

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has pioneered “sandwich” modules that are far more efficient for space solar power.
Credit: NRL/Jamie Hartman

To this point, an experiment is already flying aboard the U.S. Space Force X-37B robotic space plane. That investigation — the Photovoltaic Radio-frequency Antenna Module Flight Experiment (PRAM-FX) – is a Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) investigation into transforming solar power into radio frequency microwave energy.

Meanwhile, SOLARIS is being proposed for approval at ESA’s Council Meeting at Ministerial Level in November.

For more details on SOLARIS, go to:

https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/SOLARIS