Virtus Solis, a Michigan startup founded by former SpaceX rocket engineer John Bucknell, has introduced a plan to use the Starship rocket to launch solar cells one kilometer wide into space. The goal is to help produce and transmit electricity in space. This idea was presented at the International Conference on Space Energy in London and aims to make orbital power plants cheaper than many methods on Earth.
Thanks to the advent of reusable rockets pioneered by SpaceX, the cost of launching satellites into space has significantly decreased in recent years. Currently, SpaceX charges less than $3,000 per kilogram of goods. However, this cost is still too high for producing solar power in space, which requires large solar panels bigger than the International Space Station.
SpaceX has promised that once the Starship rocket is fully operational, the cost of launching satellites into space will drop to $10 per kilogram. Virtus Solis believes that when launch costs to low Earth orbit fall below $200 per kilogram, solar power in space will become cheaper than traditional power sources like nuclear, coal, and natural gas plants on the ground.
Solar cells on Earth currently provide the cheapest power source at less than $30 per megawatt hour. However, the challenge is that the sun doesn’t shine at night, so energy experts are seeking alternative ways to offset the decline in electricity during dark hours. Virtus Solis plans to build giant solar panels in space that can capture and transmit energy to Earth in the form of microwaves.
The company aims to improve the efficiency of wireless power transmission, a crucial hurdle in generating solar power in space. Currently, systems have an efficiency of about 5%, but Virtus Solis is working to increase that to 20%. By testing solar cell assembly in space and aiming to transmit over a kilowatt of electricity to Earth by 2027, Virtus Solis hopes to build a commercial-scale solar power plant by 2030, with costs reduced to around $30 per megawatt hour.