Amid turmoil in the Middle East, including the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a quarter of the world’s marine oil passes, Beijing is moving forward with Zhuri project (sun-chasing). building solar power stations in space.
Chinese Academy of Engineering scholar and senior rocket scientist Long Lehao to be compared this space-based solar project to put Three Falls Dam into geostationary orbit, underscoring its incredible scale and ambitions. China plans to conduct a megawatt-scale orbital test around 2030.
Space-based solar power refers to orbiting systems that collect solar energy via satellites equipped with large solar panels, convert it into microwaves or laser beams and send it wirelessly to ground-based rectifiers, which feed electricity into the national grid.
The appeal is obvious: unlike the earth’s solar energy, it works continuously – it is not affected by weather, seasons or night.
The concept is not new. Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov popularized the idea in his 1941 short story The reasonwhile aeronautical engineer Peter Glaser published the first technical design of an orbiting solar power system in 1968.
In the 1970s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) proved its feasibility before concluding that the engineering complexity and launch costs made it economically unviable. But that is now changing. Advances in robotics, wireless power distribution and dramatically falling launch costs are closing the gap between concept and reality. Major air forces are considered.
