Energy from Space Headlines
International news headlines related to harnessing energy in space.
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Total number of Space Energy Headlines: 818
Is NASA too down on space-based solar power?
Source: Science | AAAS : Date: 22-01-2024
This month, NASA cast a shadow on one of the most visionary prospects for freeing the world from fossil fuels: collecting solar energy in space and beaming it to Earth. An agency report found the scheme is feasible by 2050 but would cost between 12 and 80 times as much as ground-based renewable energy sources. ... A SpaceX adviser told a conference last year the company would achieve a figure of $200 per kilogram. In its projections, the European Space Agency (ESA) has used launch cost estimates of $300 to $500 per kilogram, says Sanjay Vijendran, who heads the agency’s Solaris program.
Space-Based Solar Power: A Vision of the Future or an Unattainable Dream?
Source: Microgrid Media : Date: 22-01-2024
The advancement of SBSP technology may hinge on international collaboration. With various countries and organizations exploring the feasibility of SBSP, pooling resources, expertise, and research could lead to more cost-effective and technologically advanced solutions. Collaborative efforts can also address concerns about the equitable use of space and the sharing of energy resources harvested in orbit. Collaborative efforts can also address concerns about the equitable use of space and the sharing of energy resources harvested in orbit.
NASA report offers pessimistic take on space-based solar power
Source: Space News / Jeff Foust : Date: 19-01-2024
Advocates of space-based solar power are criticizing a NASA report that offered a skeptical assessment of that technology’s ability to provide low-cost green energy. The report, released Jan. 10 by NASA’s Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy (OTPS), examined two previously published architectures for generating electrical power in space and transmitting it to Earth by microwaves, known as space-based solar power (SBSP). The European Space Agency is funding a project called Solaris to examine the feasibility of SBSP. China, Japan and the United Kingdom have performed their own analysis of the technology.
NASA study: clean, space-based solar power beaming is possible
Source: SpaceNews / David Steitz : Date: 19-01-2024
The new NASA report, withheld for more than a year for technical and political review, shows that there appear to be no clear technical showstoppers for an in-space solar power demonstration mission. It also showed that tapping into technologies under development today by NASA’s global partners could make space solar power beaming feasible soon — within two decades. And because pieces of this promising technology are currently or soon to be available, development requires no miracles — just commitment.
Caltech's space solar power project completes inaugural space mission
Source: Interesting Engineering : Date: 18-01-2024
Caltech's space solar power project completes inaugural space mission ... Caltech's Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD-1) was launched into space one ...
Space-Based Solar Farms Could Power the Planet from Orbit
Source: Oil Price / Haley Zaremba : Date: 18-01-2024
Renewable energy's variability problem is being addressed through long-term energy storage, with a projected 15-fold increase in global capacity by 2030. Scottish scientists propose using atmospheric mirrors to enhance solar panel output during low sunlight periods, reviving a concept from the 1920s. Advancements in space technology are making space-based solar farms feasible, with Caltech successfully demonstrating solar power beaming from space to Earth.
First ever space-to-Earth solar power mission succeeds
Source: The Independent / ESA Video : Date: 18-01-2024
Video: ESA plans to explore space-based solar power through its Solaris program. The Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD-1) project launched on 3 January last year with the goal of demonstrating the feasibility of one day harvesting the Sun’s energy and transmitting it wirelessly back to Earth on a commercial scale.
Space-Based Solar Project Completes its Mission
Source: Payload's Space / Rachael Zisk : Date: 18-01-2024
This week, the first demonstration probe to ever successfully beam solar power to Earth from orbit completed its year-long mission. In its year circling the Earth, Caltech’s Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD) notched three major successes: proving the functionality of a spacecraft design to form the basis of a future space power station, testing a compact solar cell for collecting solar energy, and, importantly, transmitting a beam of power from space to a ground station.
ARTEMIS DELAYS AND ESA: CONNECTING THE DOTS
Source: Space Watch Global : Date: 16-01-2024
Recent ESA Solaris studies have clearly established the techno-economic connection between Artemis-driven Moon ISRU and a viable SBSP-driven space economy leveraging the Earth energy markets and the urgency to decarbonize. While current consequences of Artemis accumulated delays appear manageable for NASA’s foreign partners, starting with ESA, that doesn’t mean they should be encouraged, leading to open-ended postponement of Artemis. Furthermore, NASA to give up on SBSP because it requires too many rockets sends the message that the nation is not taking SBPS seriously (on the contrary of Japan, China, India, the UAE, the UK, and Europe) Both issues are linked, we need Artemis, and we need American leadership in SBSP.
'Space nerd' MP Mark Garnier on 'sexy' rockets and turning down Jeff Bezos
Source: Politics Home : Date: 15-01-2024
Space Solar Group Holdings and chairs the advisory board of the Space Energy Initiative. The solar farms he is looking into involve satellites 3.5 kilometres wide, weighing 2,000 tonnes, requiring 60 launches and £1.5bn to get into space, Garnier says – but it’s worth the effort because one could generate a whopping two gigawatts of power. “Somebody will get a gigawatt-producing satellite in orbit by 2035. It may not be us – I hope it will be us – but somebody will be doing it, and it will change the landscape of green energy production immeasurably. It’s real ground-breaking stuff.”....
SPACE TECH: Is NASA Surrendering The Promise of Space-Based Solar Power to China, ESA, And Japan?
Source: Apple Podcasts : Date: 13-01-2024
PODCAST (58 min.): Jeers and scorn greeted NASA’s “Space-Based Solar Power” report, which if taken at face value, experts argue, could strategically disadvantage U.S. efforts to deliver cheap renewable energy, while competitors in the sector move forward. While the document confirms that Space-Based Solar Power is technologically attainable and would deliver electricity at a fraction of the cost to consumers, this episode’s guests say NASA’s assumptions are wildly out of date, do not take into account the current state of space technology, and ignore commonly-held industrial economic principles. Laura Winter speaks with John Mankins, a former NASA physicist, now President of Artemis Innovation Management Solutions, who designed the Solar Power Satellite concept, Alpha – Mark 3; Peter Garretson, an American Foreign Policy Council Senior Fellow, coauthor of the book “Scramble for the Skies The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space”; and Ed Tate, Co-Founder and CTO of Virtus Solis, a U.S Space-Based Solar Power company.
NASA Nixes Solar Power From Space (At Least For Now)
Source: Payload's Space / Tim Fernholz : Date: 12-01-2024
A new study from NASA evaluated whether Space Based Solar Power (SBSP) could compete with terrestrial electricity and reduce emissions. The authors considered two model designs that would both require putting massive arrays of solar panels in orbit to collect solar power and beam it to Earth. First, the bad news: The technology won’t be ready for prime time by 2050, according to the study. ...
New report updates NASA on space-based solar power
Source: Tech Xplore : Date: 12-01-2024
"Space-Based Solar Power," a new report from the NASA's Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (OTPS) aims to provide NASA with the information it needs to determine how it can support the development of this field of research. Space-based solar power offers tantalizing possibilities for sustainable energy—in the future, orbital collection systems could harvest energy in ...
NASA OTPS Study Sheds Light on Space-Based Solar Power Prospects for 2050
Source: Space Daily : Date: 12-01-2024
This emerging field of research holds the promise of supplementing Earth's energy needs by collecting solar energy in space and wirelessly .
Reflectors in space could make solar farms on Earth work for longer every day
Source: The Conversation : Date: 12-01-2024
Its goal was to demonstrate solar energy could be reflected from space to Earth. This was the first and only time that a mirror had ever been launched .. (see aslso: ESA study by Arthur D. Little - https://nebula.esa.int/content/pre-phase-system-study-commercial-scale-space-based-solar-power-sbsp-system-terrestrial )
Space-Based Solar Power - video Dailymotion
Source: AFP / Dailymotion / Stéphane Koguc & Jonathan Walter : Date: 11-01-2024
Solar panels installed in space could operate almost without interruption, thanks to sunlight ten times more intense than on Earth, while avoiding ... Source: ESA
Out of this World: Why does Space (and the Moon) hold so much Potential for Energy?
Source: Astrostrom.ch : Date: 03-01-2024
In this discussion at the Dubai Futures Forum that took place during COP 28 in 2023, the space experts allude to the eventual use of lunar resources for the manufacture of Space Solar Power components to supply Earth with sustainable clean energy.
Astrostrom in Chongqing, China
Source: Astrostrom.ch : Date: 16-12-2023
At the invitation of China’s FutureSpace corporation, I was pleased to present the Greater Earth Lunar Power Station (GE⊕-LPS) at the MYLAKE Aerospace Information Industry International Ecosystem Event in Chongqing, China on November 21, 2023. The theme of the event was ‘One Starry Sky, One Shared Future’. This event attracted over 1,000 participants, including representatives from industry chains, domestic and international institutions, and government agencies, all converging to advance the aerospace information sector.
These scientists want to put a massive 'sunshade' in orbit to help fight climate change
Source: Space.com : Date: 19-12-2023
... space resources and in-space construction," the group's website explains. a silver kite-like sail in space. Large solar sail systems have been ...
Moon Power: Habitable station in Lunar Orbit
Source: Leonard David: Inside Outer Space : Date: 15-12-2023
Switzerland startup, the Astrostrom company, has designed a Greater Earth Lunar Power Station, or GE⊕-LPS for short. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), the study envisages a solar power satellite constructed mainly from lunar resources (including Moon-manufactured solar cells) that could deliver megawatts of microwave power down to receivers on the lunar surface, serving the needs of surface activities, including future crewed bases.
China’s Space Program in 2023: Taking Stock
Source: The Diplomat / Namrata Goswami : Date: 14-12-2023
From heavy-lift reusable rockets to satellite internet, a look at China’s progress on top space priorities. Chinese plans in 2023 also included the development of SBSP satellites, across different space institutions involved in the project. The China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) is now focused on developing the base technologies for the construction of a large SBSP satellite, and laser and microwave power beaming.
Professor Michelle Hanlon to Co-Chair International Astronautics Committee
Source: Ole Miss News : Date: 13-12-2023
The International Academy of Astronautics has named University of Mississippi law professor Michelle Hanlon to its permanent committee on space solar power. Beaming space-based solar power energy back to Earth is largely untried, but not unproven, she said. Though no country has yet launched a permanent ...
Abu Dhabi DoE signs clean energy agreements with global partners
Source: Trade Arabia : Date: 08-12-2023
The agreements aim to harness solar power in space and developing world-class clean energy transition polices and technologies to accelerate climate action, both in Abu Dhabi and globally ...
UAE: Abu Dhabi DoE partners with University of Arizona, IRENA to advance clean energy innovation
Source: ANI News : Date: 08-12-2023
The agreements aim to harness solar power in space and develop world-class clean energy transition policies and technologies to accelerate climate ..
Europe's COP 28 Climate Change Goals Should Include Space-Based Solar Power
Source: Forbes : Date: 30-11-2023
On the verge of the 2023 international climate change conference in Dubai, Europe is hard at work on completing a space-based solar power ... But, the European Space Agency —- is taking the idea seriously and has funded a feasibility study to put a constellation of space-based solar satellites in orbit by 2040.
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