Researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in collaboration with other organizations have conducted a successful experiment in collecting and transmitting energy from an orbital satellite to Earth. This was reported by the Extremetech news portal.
This became possible thanks to the use of the Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment (MAPLE) system, which converts solar energy into radio frequency and transmits it to Earth.
Researchers note that the use of solar panels in orbit may be more efficient than on Earth, as they can continuously generate energy regardless of weather conditions and time of day. However, there remains the problem of transmitting energy from orbit to Earth.
Currently, MAPLE captures between 175 and 251 mW in space at a time, while only 1 mW of energy reaches the ground station. Scientists plan to create a satellite system like SPPD-1, which will be able to transmit energy to Earth to power 10,000 households.