Northrop Grumman has completed ground tests to demonstrate the critical technologies needed for a space-based solar display in 2025.

“On the technology side, we have a lot of confidence in our design and we’ve proven it,” Tara Teret, director of Northrop Grumman’s Space Sun Supplementary Display and Research (SSPIDR) program, told SpaceNews.

“Now it’s just a matter of assembling, testing and integrating the rest of the equipment in a short time.”

On December 15, Northrop Grumman announced the successful introduction of a key element of SSPIDR – the ability to direct radio frequency energy to different antennas via beam routing. The tests were conducted in one of Northrop Grumman’s anechoic test rooms in Baltimore.

“It will take these findings and translate them into our prototype, which we hope to launch in 2025 to actually demonstrate the possibility of transmitting radio frequency energy to the planet,” said Jay Patel, vice president of Remote Sensing Programs at Northrop Grumman. .

In addition to the prototype of the future target system, Northrop Grumman will need to reduce the number of electronic components and significantly increase the number of multi-layer tiles or photovoltaic cell panels to collect solar energy and feed another layer of components that enable its use. solar cells. Converting and beamforming to RF.

“We are currently busy building our flight hardware so we can assemble this system, which we will launch on our Northrop Grumman ESPAStar platform,” Patel said. said. (ESPAStar, a satellite bus built on the Enhanced Expendable Launch Vehicle secondary payload adapter, provides propulsion, power, steering control and communications for payloads.)

In 2018, the US Air Force Research Laboratory awarded Northrop Grumman a $100 million contract to develop a payload that will demonstrate the key components of a prototype space solar power system. AFRL designed the Arachne flight experiment to spur the development of technologies needed for a prototype space system that would deliver solar power to remote military bases.

In late 2021, Northrop Grumman demonstrated that its “multilayer flooring” could convert solar energy into radio frequency. In the latest demonstration, the company relies on phased array technology to control and direct the radio frequency beam to several fixed antennas.

“It was a demonstration that allowed us to demonstrate the culmination of several technological milestones that we have been developing since the beginning of this project,” Patel said. Solar energy from outer space, which has long been science fiction material, is being investigated by government agencies around the world.

In 2020, the Naval Research Laboratory launched an experiment on the Air Force X-37B spaceplane that captures sunlight and converts it into direct current electrical energy. The Chinese Academy of Space Technology has announced that it plans to hold a space show in 2028.

The European Space Agency has approved plans for a three-year research program called Solaris. And the UK offers grants for space solar research and technology development. According to Patel, if solar energy could be collected in space and transmitted to Earth, it would have many promising applications.

“If there’s a flood or hurricane that cuts power in an area, it sometimes takes weeks for them to kick in again,” Patel said. “This system can provide temporary power during these periods until this infrastructure is renewed.” Source