Star Catcher Industries Sets New Record for Wireless Power Transmission

What Happened?

This week, Star Catcher Industries set a new record for wireless transmission of power at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Using its Star Catcher Network, the company transmitted 1.1 kilowatts of power wirelessly, breaking the old record of eight hundred watts.

The technology works by using a grid of solar panels to power an optical multi-spectrum laser that can be aimed at a client satellite. These carefully controlled wavelengths are optimized to best suit the target solar panels, which maximizes the amount of power that can be sent and received.

Why it Matters

Wireless transmission of solar power has long been a dream of science fiction because it could allow nearly unlimited amounts of energy to be beamed directly to Earth indefinitely. But getting the technology to work would require overcoming substantial engineering challenges, such as the high amounts of power lost during transmission as the waves move through Earth’s atmosphere.  The Star Catcher system is a step towards developing practical applications for wireless energy transmission. 

According to New Atlas, the idea behind wireless power transmission was simple. Instead of using Earth-based solar panels that won't be equally available in all parts of the world, would be vastly diminished by the atmosphere, and not available at night, why not develop a better alternative? By putting solar collectors in space where sunlight is always on tap, unimpeded, and a collector can be of any size desired. Just collect the energy, convert it to microwaves, and beam it back to receiving stations on Earth.

The Star Catcher system is a variation on this idea. Instead of transmitting solar energy back to Earth, the network would beam solar power from one spacecraft or satellite to another. While that wouldn’t solve any power supply problems on Earth, it could enable spacecraft and satellites to receive a virtually unlimited supply of power, which would extend their operating lifespan and add to their capabilities. 

Commercial projects like proposed orbiting hotels for space tourism face their own power problems, and a system like Star Catcher could allow components to be launched from Earth, then become powered by orbital relays once aloft. That could allow the designs to have more room for occupants and less weight during launch, which could in turn lower the costs of getting the whole thing into space. Over time, as space-based transmission systems were improved and refined, those incremental advances could lead to the creation of systems capable of transmitting power back to Earth. 

How it Affects You

The Star Catcher design is scalable, so it has the potential to revolutionize the design and function of both satellites and spacecraft. As the commercial space sector continues to grow, innovations like the Star Catcher power system have the potential to accelerate that growth.