JAXA Launches Development for Experiments on Space Solar Power System

Copyright Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

With a view to practical usage of space solar power systems (SSPS), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) began energy transmission experiments using laser beams in fiscal 2008 and microwaves in fiscal 2009. JAXA has been conducting a series of demonstration experiments of wirelessly transmitting kilowatt-class energy over a distance of several dozen meters or more on the ground.

The experiments are aimed at developing technologies to efficiently convert solar energy into microwaves or laser beams (to be used as energy transmitting media) in space, as well as to efficiently convert them the other way around on the ground.

SSPS's space segment, which collects sunlight, converts it into microwaves and laser beams, and then transmits them to earth, will be placed into a stationary orbit 36,000 kilometers above the equator. JAXA aims to demonstrate the segment's directional control technology to transmit microwaves and laser beams to a power receiving site (several hundreds meters to several kilometers in diameter) on the ground precisely and safely. JAXA plans to start the segment's verification experiments in fiscal 2013 at the earliest, and is now working to develop laboratory equipment.

Research and development of SSPS is progressing, partly because the systems are not associated with resource depletion and have very limited carbon dioxide emissions, which occur only at the systems' power receiving facilities.

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http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/030293.html

Posted: 2011/05/21 06:00:15 AM