SPS-ALPHA

For decades, space advocates have touted solar power satellites as the ultimate solution to the world's energy needs. Such satellites would collect energy pouring out from the Sun and beam it down to Earth, where it would enter the planet's electric power grid. That energy, they argue, would be clean, essentially inexhaustible, and, at least over time, cheap.

The drawbacks for SPS have been a huge initial capital cost, and the equally huge size of the power satellites themselves. Now, NASA is backing a new technology project called SPS-ALPHA which seeks to deal with both cost and size. Instead of constructing a large structure in orbit-- several times larger than ISS-- SPS-ALPHA will study an approach that would use tens of thousands of small elements that would fly in a configuration that would allow them to do the same job as a large SPS. The concept is the same as using a network of several small telescopes to essentially create one huge telescope. By using the same component tens of thousands of times per power satellite, the theory is that by relying on components that could be mass produced, the cost of the overall actual project could be drastically reduced.

SPS-ALPHA is a one year concept study. The near-term goal of the study is to lay the groundwork for a test flight of the technology required in a few years.