Space Solar Power Draws New Energy, Defense, and Data Center Demand

Space Frontier Foundation Updates

• The Space Frontier Foundation is partnering with Experience POWER and the Data Center Power Exchange to introduce Space Solar Power directly to utility and energy sector leaders through a first-of-its-kind half-day program on Sept 30, 2026 in D.C. The effort is designed to begin sustained engagement between the space and energy communities around the future of firm, dispatchable clean energy. Register for this event now! 
  

  

  
  

• SFF is partnering with the IEEE PES Intelligent Grid and Emerging Technologies Coordinating Committee (iGET) to host a free webinar on August 14, "Energy from Space: How Space Solar Power Could Be a 24/7 Firm Power Source?" SFF's Abhinav Agrawal and Srikanth Raviprasad will cover SSP's technical fundamentals, its value proposition for utilities, data centers, and grid operators, how it compares to nuclear, geothermal, and storage-backed renewables, and how energy professionals can help define the technology's first real markets. 
  

•  At an SF Climate Week 2026 panel - co-hosted by the Space Frontier Foundation and the Young Professionals in Energy, Bay Area recapped in POWER magazine, three SSP founders made landmark announcements: Virtus Solis CEO John Bucknell revealed signed terms for a 500-megawatt deployment agreement with pilots targeted within 24 months, Overview Energy's Abdullah Al-Shakarchi described the "geographically dispatchable" advantage of redirecting a beam between continents, and Reach Power CEO Chris Davlantes detailed an already-operational ground-based wireless power business with the Department of Defense as a customer. 

Notable News

• Breaking Defense reported on why the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are increasingly aligned on solar power-beaming satellites, covering how the Air Force's Space Futures Command SOED office is overseeing Overview Energy's beaming contract and helping transition tech from the Air Force Research Lab's SSPIDR program, while Star Catcher uses AFWERX grants to develop space-to-space power beaming for satellite uptime and maneuverability. The piece captures military logistics and commercial energy economics now pulling in the same direction on SSP.
  

• The FCC granted Reflect Orbital authorization to launch and test Eärendil-1, a demonstration satellite that will unfurl an 18-meter reflective mirror to redirect sunlight to targeted ground areas at night, over the objections of the American Astronomical Society and other observatories. Aerospace America reported that the company plans to boost the satellite to a higher test altitude and demonstrate five-minute illumination passes once deployed, with a stated goal of eventually extending usable daylight hours for solar farms.
  

• The Defense Innovation Unit is seeking commercial proposals to beam electrical power between spacecraft and from orbit to the ground, with a goal of an on-orbit prototype demonstration within 24 months and an operational capability by fiscal 2030. DIU hasn't decided whether the government will own the system or buy power as a service, but the solicitation gives commercial power-beaming companies a concrete government customer to build toward.
  

• Turin-based startup ORiS raised €5 million to develop laser-based wireless power transmission for satellites, with a first in-orbit demonstration alongside Dcubed planned for early 2027. The company is pursuing "Power-as-a-Service" for orbiting spacecraft, positioning itself as a European, laser-based counterpart to the microwave-focused power-beaming approaches favored by better-funded U.S. competitors.
  

• Sophia Space, a Caltech spinout, and Caltech jointly secured a U.S. patent for a modular, passively-cooled orbital data center architecture that draws directly on Caltech's Space-Based Solar Power Project. The patented "TILE" design solves the compute cooling problem by radiating waste heat from the dark side of each tile while drawing power from solar cells on the sunlit side, illustrating how SSP-adjacent research into space-based energy collection is now feeding directly into the orbital-compute race.
  

• Meta's global head of net zero and sustainability, Blair Swedeen, discussed the company's clean-energy strategy with Trellis, confirming Meta is helping fund Overview Energy's 2028 demonstration under their capacity-reservation deal and calling space solar "an early stage technology but... quite exciting." The interview underscores that Meta's SSP bet sits alongside a broader push into long-duration storage and nuclear, framed as ways to extend the value of clean energy assets it has already committed to.
  

• TerraSpark in a recent blog article laid out its phased approach to space-based solar power, starting with terrestrial wireless power demonstrations before scaling to an orbital technology demonstrator in 2027 and first space-to-Earth transmission in 2028. The company also announced a kickoff with Flanders Space as part of building out a European ecosystem for the technology, adding a second regional hub alongside Luxembourg to its roadmap.
  

  
  

SSP Systems Enablers

• Flexell Space, a South Korean developer of flexible perovskite-and-CIGS space solar cells spun out of Hanwha Systems, closed a $20 million Series A round backed by Mirae Asset, Industrial Bank of Korea, and existing investors, bringing its cumulative funding to roughly $25 million. The company plans to reach full-scale production of its space-qualified solar cells by 2028, adding another link to the component supply chain that any SSP satellite ultimately depends on.
  

• Interesting Engineering reported that researchers at Harbin Institute of Technology have proposed a laser-based power transmission network near the lunar south pole, where solar-powered stations on sunlit ridges would beam energy to rovers operating in permanently shadowed, ice-bearing craters nearby. Simulations using NASA's Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter data found that repositioning stations by about 100 meters could raise effective power coverage from under 20% to more than 24%, another data point in the broader case that power beaming, the same physics underlying Earth-directed SSP, is proving out first in smaller, easier-to-fund settings like lunar surface operations.
  

• A new paper in the Journal of Aerospace Information Systems proposes a systematic framework for evaluating on-orbit assembly options for modular space-based solar power structures, addressing a gap the author notes has persisted even as SSP concepts have shifted from massive monolithic designs toward modular ones built for manufacturability. The framework is used to conceptualize and score alternative approaches for an on-orbit assembly demonstration mission, the kind of methodical engineering groundwork that is crucial actually building a full-scale SSP structure in orbit.
  

• Verde Technologies, a Vermont-based perovskite solar panel startup, is shifting its initial commercialization focus from rooftop solar to space, betting that its lightweight, flexible thin-film cells can help power orbital data centers and large satellite constellations. Former Honeywell executive Jean-Noël Poirier is joining as CEO to lead the pivot, while cofounder Chad Miller moves to CTO; the company argues that shorter typical space-mission lifetimes sidestep the durability problems that have held perovskite back in 30-year terrestrial installations, adding another candidate material to the space-qualified solar cell supply chain SSP satellites will eventually draw on. 
  

Promising Use Cases

Image Courtesy: MIT Technology Review

Power Crunch in Space and on Earth

AI data centers are outgrowing the grid's ability to plan around them: power availability, not capital, is the primary constraint on development, with grid interconnections taking up to four years. That scarcity means large loads can no longer be treated as passive customers, since their scale is now reshaping transmission investment and resource adequacy. These issues further amplify in operational strain too, as a NERC report documented a 1,800-megawatt grid disturbance caused by AI facilities' own protective equipment tripping offline in milliseconds, prompting the regulator's highest-urgency alert. Together, these point to the same underlying case for SSP: a power source that's dispatchable and geography-independent. SSP offers a unique solution to interconnection queues, transmission buildout, and protective-equipment failure modes that increasingly stand between AI infrastructure and the grid. Some of that demand may also move off Earth entirely: orbital data centers could begin scaling economically in the early 2030s if launch costs fall low enough, a shift only reinforced by rising local opposition that blocked or delayed at least 75 U.S. data center projects worth $130 billion in Q1 2026 alone. If compute itself moves into orbit, those satellites still need power, opening up even more opportunities for SSP: orbital data centers running around the clock without sizing every satellite's own solar array and batteries for peak load, assuming the cooling challenge is solved.

SSP Coverage in the News

Outsiders' Perspectives

• XenoSpectrum's deep-dive compared the SSP industry's $50–100/MWh cost target against NASA's independent 2024 estimate, which ranges from $610–1,590/MWh under current technology assumptions down to $30–80/MWh only if six optimistic conditions, including $50 million per launch, are all met simultaneously. The analysis is careful to note that industry targets sit within NASA's best-case scenario rather than being dismissed by it, but stresses that verifying launch costs and transmission efficiency, not just signing contracts, is what will determine whether the current wave of commercial announcements holds up.
  

• SpaceNews reported that a coalition of environmental and dark-sky advocacy groups, including Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Environment America, and DarkSky International, has asked the FCC to pause processing applications for orbital data center constellations pending a full environmental review, citing concerns about rocket emissions, orbital debris, and light pollution from proposals that collectively include over a million satellites. The petition is aimed at orbital compute rather than SSP specifically, but the same regulatory and environmental scrutiny is likely to extend to any large SSP constellation seeking similar approvals.
  

Experts and Advocates on SSP

• Marc Berte, founder and CEO of Overview Energy, walked through his company's business model in detail on MCJ's Inevitable podcast, describing how satellites in geosynchronous orbit can redirect a beam of near-infrared light between time zones to sell into whichever region's demand peak is highest at that moment, a concept he called "supply response." He also discussed the company's "megawatt photon" pricing model, its capacity-reservation deal with Meta, and defense applications for powering logistically isolated military bases.
  

• Jasper Deprez, CEO of TerraSpark, discussed the company's space-based solar power strategy on the BSV Podcast, explaining why the company is targeting remote, off-grid customers first, where diesel logistics and weather-dependent renewables make reliability worth a premium, before eventually scaling toward utilities and larger power delivery from higher orbits.
  

• Space Solar, in their recent blog post, argue that a change in UK government administration is precisely the moment to make a bolder case for what space-based solar power can deliver  for the UK and the world, framing political transition as an opening to renew the sector's pitch rather than a reason to wait. Shifts in the political and regulatory landscape could be utilized as moments to re-pitch the technology's value proposition, not just obstacles to route around.
  

Originally posted on Substack.