EconomicCorner017

[richardmurray]

China plan to build the biggest solar array in space. 
why solar power in space?
the light from the sun , or any star, is manipulated , usually lessened when a planet's atmosphere is involved. The earth's atmosphere is why light from the sun doesn't arrive as potently as it is outside the earth's atmosphere, but this blockage maintains life on earth. Water or air would get too hot , the temperature cycle of earth would die without that atmosphere. 
But in space, the unfiltered solar energy makes it the standard source for most or all human craft since the beginning of the human craft traveling outside earth with sputnik in the 1900s.
the Japanese will do a test of the concept, like nuclear powered aircraft, studies are done and based on their feasibility things will be continued. My opening question is, how can a high energy beam not negatively influence earth's atmosphere with the heat. 
Basically, solar panels will charge a battery and the battery will emit microwaves to earth , because of the speed of the satellite + the lack of a more efficient pointing apparatus on the satellite, a set of arrays over 25 miles will be used to collect the energy. It will take several days for the battery to recharge. 
They already tested the concept on earth with a plane using the same solar panel + battery, smaller in scale. Check the links below.
The first thing I notice is the lack of a focus beam. I think to make the atmosphere not manipulated they are emitting with less focus thus it needs a wide array , geographically, to transmit the energy. I think it is sensible for the earth which can't afford the atmosphere to get hotter by electromagnetic emissions. This is being sold as a green energy but I disagree. I think this will be how the moon bases or mars operations are powered because even though electromagnetic radiation that contact the surface of the moon or mars is less refracted or reflected than on earth, the electromagnetic radiation that travels across the stars is a higher energy an undistilled variant that will always generate more energy.
Contact for more information
yanagawa-hiroki@jspacesystems.or.jp

 

CITATIONS
URL
https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/china-plans-to-build-enormous-solar-array-in-space-and-it-could-collect-more-energy-in-a-year-than-all-the-oil-on-earth
TEXT

China plans to build enormous solar array in space — and it could collect more energy in a year than 'all the oil on Earth'

News

By Ben Turner

 published January 14, 2025

China has announced plans to build a giant solar power space station, which will be lifted into orbit piece by piece using the nation's brand-new heavy lift rockets.

Chinese scientists have announced a plan to build an enormous, 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) wide solar power station in space that will beam continuous energy back to Earth via microwaves.

The project, which will see its components lofted to a geostationary orbit above Earth using super-heavy rockets, has been dubbed "another Three Gorges Dam project above the Earth."

The Three Gorges Dam, located in the middle of the Yangtze river in central China, is the world's largest hydropower project and generates 100 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. According to one NASA scientist, the dam is so large that, if completely filled, the mass of the water contained within would lengthen Earth's days by 0.06 microseconds.

The new project, according to lead scientist Long Lehao, the chief designer of China’s Long March rockets, would be "as significant as moving the Three Gorges Dam to a geostationary orbit 36,000km (22,370 miles) above the Earth."

"This is an incredible project to look forward to," Long added during a lecture in October hosted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), as reported by the South China Morning Post. "The energy collected in one year would be equivalent to the total amount of oil that can be extracted from the Earth."

Despite recent advances in the cheapness and efficiency of solar power, the technology still faces some fundamental limitations — such as intermittent cloud cover and most of the atmosphere absorbing solar radiation before it hits the ground.

Scientists have proposed a number of Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) technologies which would continuously collect and transmit energy from sunlight in space, where it is 10 times more intense than at Earth's surface.

But building an appropriately giant array would take many launches, meaning that most proposals failed to get off the ground.

To overcome this challenge, Long and his team are working on the development of the Long March-9 (CZ-9) reusable heavy-lift rocket, which will have a lift capacity of at least 150 tons (136 metric tons).

Besides being used for satellites, the rocket will also be key to China's plans to reach the moon — where it wants to build an international lunar research base by 2035.

China isn't the only nation eyeing plans for solar satellite arrays. The U.S. companies Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, the European Space Agency, and Japan's JAXA space agency have also been investigating the technology, with the latter scheduling the launch of a small, proof-of-concept satellite this year to assess its feasibility.

 

URL
https://www.space.com/japan-space-based-solar-power-demonstration-2025

TEXT

Japanese satellite will beam solar power to Earth in 2025

News

By Tereza Pultarova

 published April 19, 2024

Japan's upcoming space-based solar power demonstration will beam power to Earth next year.

LONDON — Japan is on track to beam solar power from space to Earth next year, two years after a similar feat was achieved by U.S. engineers. The development marks an important step toward a possible space-based solar power station that could help wean the world off fossil fuels amid the intensifying battle against climate change. 

Speaking at the International Conference on Energy from Space, held here this week, Koichi Ijichi, an adviser at the Japanese research institute Japan Space Systems, outlined Japan's road map toward an orbital demonstration of a miniature space-based solar power plant that will wirelessly transmit energy from low Earth orbit to Earth.

"It will be a small satellite, about 180 kilograms [400 pounds], that will transmit about 1 kilowatt of power from the altitude of 400 kilometers [250 miles]," Ijichi said at the conference. 

One kilowatt is about the amount of power needed to run a household appliance, such as a small dishwasher, for about an hour, depending on its size. Therefore, the demonstration is nowhere near the scale required for commercial use.

The spacecraft will use a 22-square-foot (2 square meters) onboard photovoltaic panel to charge a battery. The accumulated energy will then be transformed into microwaves and beamed toward a receiving antenna on Earth. Because the spacecraft travels very fast — around 17,400 mph (28,000 km/h) — antenna elements will have to be spread over a distance of about 25 miles (40 km), spaced 3 miles (5 km) apart, to allow enough energy to be transmitted.

"The transmission will take only a few minutes," Ijichi said. "But once the battery is empty, it will take several days to recharge."

The mission, part of a project called OHISAMA (Japanese for "sun"), is on track for launch in 2025. The researchers have already demonstrated wireless transmission of solar power on the ground from a stationary source, and they plan to conduct a transmission from an aircraft in December. The aircraft will be fitted with an identical photovoltaic panel as will be flown on the spacecraft and will beam down power over a distance of 3 to 4 miles (5 to 7 km), according to Ijichi.

From concept to reality 

Space-based solar power generation, first described in 1968 by former Apollo engineer [ https://www.space.com/26175-peter-glaser-solar-power-satellite-obituary.html ]

Peter Glaser, has been considered science fiction. Although theoretically feasible, the technology has been seen as impractical and too costly, as it requires enormous structures to be assembled in orbit to produce the required power output. 

But according to the experts speaking at the conference, that situation has changed as a result of recent technological advances and the urgency to decarbonize the world's power supply to thwart climate change.

Unlike most renewable power generation technologies used on Earth, including solar power and wind energy, space-based solar power could be available constantly, as it would not depend on weather and the time of the day. Currently, nuclear power plants or gas- and coal-fired power stations are used to cover demand when the wind stops blowing or after sunset. Improvements in technology could help partially solve the problem in the future. But some pieces of the puzzle are still missing to secure a seamless carbon-neutral power supply by the middle of this century as stipulated in international climate change agreements.

Developments in robotic technologies, improvements in the efficiency of wireless power transmission and, most importantly, the arrival of SpaceX's giant rocket Starship could allow space-based solar power to become a reality, the experts said at the conference. 

Last year, a satellite built by Caltech engineers as part of the Space Solar Power Demonstrator mission beamed solar power from space for the first time. The mission, which concluded in January, was celebrated as a major milestone. 

Many more space-based solar power demonstration projects are in the pipeline. The technology is studied by space and research agencies all over the world, including the European Space Agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Air Force. Commercial companies and startups are also developing concepts, harnessing the availability of Starship and the emergence of advanced space robotics.

However, not everyone is enthusiastic about the potential of space-based solar power. In January, NASA released a report questioning the feasibility of the technology. The difficulty and amount of energy required to build, launch and assemble orbital power stations mean the energy they produce would be too expensive — 61 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with as little as 5 cents per kilowatt-hour for Earth-based solar or wind energy. 

In addition, the overall carbon footprint of the power production and the amount of greenhouse gas emissions generated by rockets taking those assemblies into orbit make space-based solar power much less climate-friendly than technologies used on Earth. For example, a gigawatt-scale spaceborne solar power station, such as the CASSIOPeiA concept plant proposed by the U.K. firm Space Solar, would need 68 Starships to get to space. 

 

URL
https://www.jspacesystems.or.jp/en/news/4968.html

TEXT

Can not copy and past. But check the URL immediately below, and if it doesn't work i have the pdf in my public folder linked immediately after that

URL
https://www.jspacesystems.or.jp/jss/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/1stTestReport_2024.12.24en-1.pdf

 

URL

PDF Demonstration information in my public storage
 

URL

Video 1

Video 2

PAID ARTICLE URL- I couldn't see but may have better information
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3294091/china-plans-build-three-gorges-dam-space-harness-solar-power

 

This is just for me to giggle:) but don't say nobody warned you

Prior edition: https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11497-economiccorner016/

 

[ProfD]

Nothing at all. I'm perfectly fine right here on planet Earth.