EADS Astrium, Europe’s largest space development company, has revealed plans to develop a satellite system which could provide power to Earth. Currently seeking partners to aid them in the development of such a solar power mission, Astrium explained that after 30 years of discussion they believed that the concept was near to maturity. Francois Augue, chief executive of the firm expressed “Today we are not at an operational stage; it’s just a test. In order to implement a solution, of course, we would need to find partnerships and to invest, to develop operational systems.”
Using a team of satellites, the sun’s energy would be collected and then projected down to Earth in a laser beam which could be used for electricity. Whilst previous discussion has disputed efficiency and costs, solar power remains an attractive concept, especially in the environmentally conscious modern age, due to its inexhaustible clean source. With solar power much stronger in space as it doesn’t have to penetrate the atmosphere or clouds, Astrium said that it had already carried out laboratory experiments on how to get the energy back to Earth. A particular criticism is that of safely projecting high energy back to the planet, but the company explained that could safely do it without “cooking” anyone in its path.
Stating that there were still serious boundaries to overcome, Astrium’s chief technology officer Robert Laine explained “Today, we will be limited in power by the size of the laser we can build. That’s a prime limitation. On the receive side, the conversion of this infrared energy into electricity – that’s something which is progressing very fast and we are working with the University of Surrey to develop converters. The principle is to get a very high efficiency of conversion of the infrared (laser light) into electricity. If we achieve 80% then it’s a real winner.”
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Space based solar power collection is the way for the future. I believe testing and experimenting is very important. The quicker we invest in research and development to make it happen, the better for our world and it would also expand the electricty business to space. There are still many things that need to be looked at like health and safety of the operation in space, in air (like airplanes) and on our earth. Another issue is can enough energy be created and how will the satelittes be protected by solar bursts or other forms of radiation or even space junk. Vic Stathopoulos