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from the just-needs-a-phase-conjugate-tracking-system dept.
The United States Navy is testing power beaming satellite technology.
Recently, one of [the] groups at America's Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) hit a milestone in the development of power satellite technology by launching their Photovoltaic RF Antenna Module (PRAM) test satellite.
The idea underlying power satellites is called "power beaming". Power beaming systems use one of three different frequencies of light to transmit significant amounts of power over a distance wirelessly. Last year NRL had a successful demonstration of a land-based power beaming system using an infrared laser.
Doing it from space presents a whole new set of challenges though, and not necessarily just technical ones. Dr Paul Jaffe, the technical lead on the PRAM project, described the process of being selected for an orbital launch as equivalent to Shark Tank – numerous PIs pitching their ideas for a trip to orbit. After several years of trying, PRAM finally got it's time to shine on an X-37B launch on May 17th.
PRAM won't actually shine though – it's surface is covered in black solar panels, and its innards consist of the first hardware ever launched to orbit that converts solar energy into microwaves.
Although it won't actually beam power back to Earth, the 30cm PRAM satellite will test and gather metrics to compare with Earth based systems, including
- Efficiency of conversion of solar energy to microwaves
- Thermal management using the radiative cooling system
- Power Density
- Base station design
- Optimal Illumination orbit
Addressing fears around use of the platform as a weapon, Dr. Jaffe notes "If you put a magnifying glass in front of your WiFI router, it doesn't start melting anything."
Related:
China Plans Space-Based Solar Power Stations
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 21 2020, @06:04PM (1 child)
"If you put a magnifying glass in front of your WiFI router, it doesn't start melting anything."
I also don't use router for power transfer.
(Score: 2) by Kalas on Sunday June 21 2020, @08:27PM
That's exactly what I was thinking. It's a bad analogy because of the orders of magnitude of energy difference. A wifi signal is only used to convey information over a short distance. Transmitting enough energy from orbit and through the atmosphere to do real useful work on whatever scale is a different beast entirely.
That said, rather than any potential use as an orbit to surface weapon I'd be more concerned about what it might do to other satellites. Satellites tend to carry sensitive electronics and I can totally see something like this frying one that happens to fly between the transmitter and its terrestrial target, not to mention the possibility of it being deliberately aimed at other satellites. It'd be a damn shame if a working one of these Navy beaming satellites "accidentally" ended up pointed at a Chinese surveillance satellite.