Caltech’s 2500 Orbiting Solar Panels Could Provide Earth With Limitless Energy
Robots & Machines Caltech’s 2500 Orbiting Solar Panels Could Provide Earth With Limitless Energy IN BRIEF The Space Solar Power Initiative (SSPI), a collaboration between Caltech and Northrup Grumman, has developed a system of lightweight solar power tiles which can convert solar energy to radio waves and can be placed in orbit to beam power to an energy-thirsty Earth. SOAKING IN THE SUN’S RAYS One of the greatest challenges facing the 21st Century is the issue of power—how to generate enough of it, how to manufacture it cheaply and with the least amount of harmful side-effects, and how to get it to users. The solutions will have to be very creative—rather like what the Space Solar Power Initiative (SSPI), a partnership between Caltech and Northrup Grumman, has devised. Prototype of the “multifunctional tile.” Credit: Caltech “What we’re proposing, somewhat audaciously, is to develop the technology that would enable one to build the largest-ever-built space struct...