Our Mission: To create the landscape and conditions for commercial Space Solar Power technology by the U.S. to become successful and self-sustaining.

SSP Bulletin

Space Frontier Foundation Updates

• The International Conference on Energy from Space 2025, sponsored by Space Energy Insights and the Space Frontier Foundation, is scheduled to be held on November 19-21 in France. This year's theme is "Energy for Security". Register for the conference here.
  

Notable News

• Star Catcher CEO Andrew Rush was one of the speakers in the Founders' Panel at AIAA Ascend, sharing about his company's origin and bringing awareness to SSP technology.
• Space Energy Insights has recently published a blog post addressing frequently brought up economic barriers to SSP and how they can be overcome. The post highlights the targeted policy support and innovative financing can make space solar power viable. Additonally, this article notes that SSP technologies exist, but large-scale integration is challenging.
  

• Virtus Solis has recently released a video that visualizes what a full day of receiving and transmitting energy would look like for three solar panels in space to two ground stations.

• Covered by Businesswire, Reach Power has been chosen by DARPA for its Embedded Entrepreneur Initiative to speed up the commercialization of wireless remote power technology. The award will help Reach hire a commercial executive to grow its RF-based wireless power transfer platform in various sectors. This initiative supports the use of untethered autonomous systems and intelligent sensors, aligning with DARPA's focus on improving energy resilience within the Department of Defense.

SSP Systems Enablers

• Solestial, which produces photovoltaics for solar panels in space, has been awarded $1.2 million from SpaceWERX for a Direct-to-Phase II contract which involves a demonstration that a complete solar array can be manufactured in just one month's time.
• Rep. Mike Rogers [R-AL-3] sponsored a bill in the House Armed Services Committee to accelerate the national production of silicon-based solar panels. This action addresses China's recent limiations of important shipping materials like gallium and germanium, which risks long delays and increasing costs. From this, The commitee emphasizes lowering the countries foreign reliance by growing U.S production and developing space substitutes. 
• Aetherflux has recently tested and validated their pointing, acquisition, and tracking capabilities, including a successful demonstration of their retroreflector. They will use data collected from these tests for a larger scale outdoor test this fall.
• Loughborough University News has released information from Loughborough and Swansea universities of developing lightweight cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar cells. This new technology will be used on very thin glass in space operations and aims to transform the satellite and space industry by offering lighter, cheaper, and more radiation-tolerant to replace traditional solar cells.
• Georgia-based startup Atomic-6, has received a $2 million U.S Space Force to test its LightWing solar array. This lightweight array increases reliability, reduces errors, and produces more energy than traditional solar panels.
• The U.S. Government Accountability Office points out that in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (ISAM) could help fix satellites, get rid of trash, and build solar power infrastructure in space as satellites go from 1,400 in 2015 to over 11,000 in 2025 and possibly even 18,000 in 2030. Beginning this has a chicken and egg dilemma: satellite manufacturers wait for servicing infrastructure; providers lack matching clients. Challenges include unclear laws, few testing, and scattered demand. Five policy choices recommended by the GAO include naming a government ISAM champion and encouraging serviceable satellite design.
• SunCubes received €1.1 million to further its laser-based drone charging technology, which seeks to offer drones continuous, wireless power. Relevant to future space-based solar power systems, this invention may cut downtime, increase operating range, and enable more widespread uses of wireless energy transfer.
• The Daily CPEC, reports that GalaxySpace introduces foldable, completely flexible solar panels that pack to the size of a water bottle for launch and extend in orbit to over 10 meters, providing four times the energy density of conventional rigid arrays and enabling multi-satellite launches, therefore positioning the business as a leader in making satellite technology available for future space-based solar power.
• Ariel Ekblaw, writing in the Financial Times, discusses a new industrial revolution in space. She highlights that advancements in reusable launch vehicles, like SpaceX’s Starship, have drastically lowered launch costs from $50,000 per kilogram to under $2,000, with future projections of below $200 per kilogram. This cost drop allows more startups and companies to explore orbital manufacturing of semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and special alloys unique to microgravity. 

Upcoming Events

• The International Conference on Energy from Space 2025, sponsored by Space Energy Insights and the Space Frontier Foundation, is scheduled to be held on November 19-21 in France. This year's theme is "Energy for Security". Check out more about the conference here.

Throwback

• In the National Space Society's 2008 Ad Astra Magazine, space solar power took center stage as both a clean energy breakthrough and a strategic asset. The article revisited Dr. Peter Glaser’s 1960 vision of orbital satellites collecting solar energy and beaming it to Earth—an idea the U.S. Department of Defense later explored as a way to power bases independent of fuel chains. Full report available in the archived issue on SSP.

Promising Use Cases

Image Courtesy: AI generated image by the Space Frontier Foundation

Tech Power Demands

Congress’s decision to cut billions in clean energy subsidies is slowing the growth of U.S. solar and wind projects while intensifying competition with China, which is rapidly expanding both its energy capacity and AI capabilities. The result is higher electricity costs, fewer renewable projects, and a weaker position for the U.S. in AI and other industries. For example, Microsoft’s carbon emissions have risen 23.4% as energy-hungry AI data centers expand, even as the company remains committed to becoming carbon neutral—a goal that demands more carbon-free electricity. At the same time, PJM customers face electricity bills projected to rise more than 20% this summer due to grid congestion and project delays, prompting Pennsylvania’s governor to consider leaving the system. Space-based solar power offers a potential solution: delivering clean electricity directly to high-demand areas, easing price surges, strengthening grid reliability, and ensuring America can power both households and advanced industries without sacrificing sustainability or speed.

Image Courtesy: U.S. Department of Energy

Strain on Power Grid

Rising energy demands, along with an aging grid, create a chain of interconnected challenges in the United States. Recently, in New York, wholesale electricity prices soared to nearly $3,000 per megawatt-hour due to extreme heat, triggering localized outages and highlighting the potential for weather to push the grid to the brink. Meanwhile in Ohio, the continued development of data centeres creates continuous load with the effect of raising residential prices. At the national level, the Energy Department notes that if there is no new capacity for reliable generation, the frequency of blackouts might increase by 100 times by 2039. Space solar power should be able to handle these stressses all at once by providing uninterrupted clean energy from orbit, unaffected by weather or darkness, therefore stabilizing prices and assuring supply for the constantly rising demand as well as minimizing costly infastructure upgrades.

SSP Coverage in the News

Outsiders' Perspectives

• Laurence Russell, of Orbital Today, describes the recent interest in space-based solar power due to new investments and government support. Startup companies like Space Solar and Aetherflux are focusing on developing satellites to beam clean energy to Earth. Challenges like high costs and safety are recurrent within the public but countries like China, United States, and United Kingdom are actively pursuing space-based solar power.
• Allied Market Research, provides information about the solar power market and how it is predicted to grow from $425.7 million to $902.2 million in 2030. This is due to the demand for clean, continuous energy from industries and government agencies.
• IEEE Spectrum covered DARPA’s record in wireless power beaming technologies, 800W beamed over 8.6 kilometers, which is a ground breaking demonstration to unlock wireless power transfer applications over long distances.

Experts and Advocates on SSP

• Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, of Semafor, writes about Baiju Bhatt, the co-founder of Robinhood, that they have begun to launch the startup Aetherflux. Their goal is to create a constellation of small satellites using inferred lasers to give energy to Earth. Investors like the Pentagon and Andreessen Horowitz have supported Aetherflux and are aiming to show this technology in a year. Baiju Bhatt was recently featured in the Shan Ryan show where he talks about his company's plans to demonstrate its system with a satellite launch in 2026 to deliver clean energy to remote regions.
• Space Solar Co-CEO, Martin Soltau, was featured in Thinking On Paper, where he discussed the economics, engineering, and policy shifts that make orbit-generated clean energy look inevitable. Soltau urged that the Air Force should boost local production of solar panels to lessen foreign dependency. 
  
• SpaceNews held a webinar on August 14, 2025, featuring John Mankins, Martin Soltau, Colby Carrier and Karen Jones. They discussed the advances making space-based solar power more feasible with falling launch costs and advances in manufacturing.