China Is Building a Solar Station in Space That Could Generate Practically Endless Power

• China is currently planning to build a gigantic solar power station in space.

• To get parts of the array out of our atmosphere, scientists are working on a reusable heavy lift rocket called the Long March-9.

• The solar array project is just one small part of China’s larger space mission.

The Three Gorges Dam—located on the Yangtze River in China—is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world. Though there is discourse over whether the dam has negative ecological effects, it is an impressive hydropower project, with over 20 times the energy-generating capacity of the Hoover Dam. Now, China wants to build another revolutionary energy source: a solar array in space.

“It is as significant as moving the Three Gorges Dam to a geostationary orbit 36,000km (22,370 miles) above the Earth,” Long Lehao, a rocket scientist and member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), said in a lecture reported by the South China Morning Post. “This is an incredible project to look forward to.”

Space-based solar power (SBSP) stations work by using a system of mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto panels, which then generate electricity. The electricity is then converted to microwave radiation and beamed to a fixed antenna on Earth.

SBSP panels are more reliable than the solar panels on your roof because they aren’t affected by seasonal weather or nights. They can generate much more electricity than terrestrial panels, as sunlight is exponentially more intense in space than on Earth’s surface. A recent NASA study even predicted that one model of space-based solar power could generate power for a full 99% of the year.

As Long said in his lecture: “The energy collected in one year would be equivalent to the total amount of oil that can be extracted from the Earth.”

Sounds like the perfect solution to our non-renewable energy crisis, right? Well, there are a few drawbacks holding space companies back—namely, the transparent size of the project.

The solar array is predicted to be a kilometer wide once fully assembled. According to the South China Morning Post, many are calling space-based solar power stations the “Manhattan Project” of the energy world. And yet, China seems set on succeeding in this endeavor.

The European Space Agency explains that it took dozens of launches to construct the International Space Station in low-orbit, and would likely take many more to assemble a SBSP station (though, the cost of launches worldwide continues to decline).

To get their array into space, Long and his team are working on developing the Long March-9 (or CZ-9)—a reusable heavy-lift rocket with a lifting capacity of at least 150 tons. That’s like lifting a full-grown blue whale into space.

The solar array isn’t the only plan China has for space research—it also plans to reach the Moon and build an International Lunar Research station in partnership with Russia by 2035. Japan is also on track to beam space-based solar power to Earth in the next year. SBSP stations, it seems, might just be the next challenge in the space race.

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