Loughborough Branch: Space-Based Solar Power - How the UK is turning science fiction into reality

Space-based solar power has long seemed like science fiction—vast solar arrays orbiting Earth, beaming clean energy down around the clock. Isaac Asimov envisioned it in 1941. Yet over eighty years later, governments and commercial enterprises backed by private capital are investing seriously in this technology. The convergence of several factors has changed the landscape: plummeting launch costs, breakthrough satellite architecture, and an energy system struggling to meet constant, affordable, and clean power demands as consumption heads towards quadrupling by 2050.

Martin Soltau, Co-CEO of Space Solar, presents the case that space-based solar power is no longer a theoretical curiosity but a viable engineering programme with a clear commercial horizon. He explains why the economics now stack up—and why the figures might surprise you. With candid discussion of the hardest technical challenges—from safely beaming power across thousands of kilometres to assembling structures kilometres wide in orbit—Soltau demonstrates how Space Solar and its UK partners are overcoming these obstacles through systematic demonstrators.

Could this be the clean energy source delivering cheap, reliable, round-the-clock power, and might Britain lead the world in its development? This fast-moving presentation covers the physics, economics and engineering of one of the most ambitious clean-energy initiatives of our generation, offering a frank assessment of the path from concept to operational space-based power station.

RAeS Members, Associated Branch Members and students attend free. Non-members are encouraged to make a £3 donation.