Space Solar

A Harwell-based company working on space-based solar power, which would collect sunlight in orbit and beam it to Earth as radio waves.

About Space Solar

Space Solar wants to collect sunlight in space and send the energy to Earth. In space the Sun shines all the time, with no clouds or night, so a solar power satellite could in theory supply steady, clean electricity. The company's design is called CASSIOPeiA, a satellite in a very high orbit with solar panels and mirrors, which beams power down as radio waves to a receiving station. It describes CASSIOPeiA as a new format of microwave antenna suitable for wireless power transfer in space, which with efficient solar cells forms the basis of a utility-scale solar power satellite. The idea is large, and the company is still at the stage of testing and proving key parts.

The company's stated aim, as reported on the Harwell Campus website, is to develop space-based solar power to provide sustainable, affordable energy. Martin Soltau and Sam Adlen are named as its co-chief executives. A key test was its HARRIER demonstrator, a half-metre device tested at Queen's University Belfast. It showed beams steered through 360 degrees, a control system that points the beam back at where the signal comes from, and a beam shape that matched its calculations. The plan is for this to grow into a system about 1.7 km across that could deliver gigawatt-scale power.

Space Solar is based at the Harwell Campus in Didcot, Oxfordshire, which hosts more than 100 space organisations. It works with Thales Alenia Space UK, which has collaborated with it for more than six months under the UK government's Net Zero Innovation Programme, on concepts and mission design. The UK Space Agency chief executive, Dr Paul Bate, called the HARRIER tests "a really important milestone on the way to making space-based solar power a reality". Its statement that delivering such a system needs "great companies working together across the space and energy sectors and beyond" signals that it sees itself as one part of a wider team.

The pages we read give no information on team size or working culture, so we cannot describe it. The work spans several areas of science and engineering, and the project is an early-stage, high-ambition one, which suggests an environment where ideas are tested step by step. If you are drawn by a long-term goal that might help the energy transition, this is the kind of organisation to follow, though it is small and specialised.

The roles in a company like this include radio frequency and antenna engineers, power electronics engineers, systems engineers who work out how the whole satellite fits together, mechanical designers, and modelling and simulation specialists who check designs on computers before anything is built. There are also programme managers, policy and partnerships specialists who work with energy and space bodies, and finance and administrative staff. Physics, maths, electrical engineering and computing are the usual starting points.

What they do

• {'desc': 'A solar power satellite concept that beams energy to Earth as radio waves.', 'title': 'CASSIOPeiA design'}
• {'desc': 'A power-beaming demonstrator tested to show beam steering and pointing control.', 'title': 'HARRIER demonstrator'}
• {'desc': 'Concept development and mission design with Thales Alenia Space UK.', 'title': 'Partnership work'}

Key facts

• Based at the Harwell Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire
• Co-chief executives are Martin Soltau and Sam Adlen
• HARRIER half-metre power-beaming demonstrator tested at Queen's University Belfast
• Works with Thales Alenia Space UK under the Net Zero Innovation Programme

Website: www.spacesolar.co.uk