Since years scientists around the globe are trying to find out solutions for sustainable and environment friendly power generation. It seems that China has mastered the art by planning to construct the first solar power station in space
China plans to construct a massive space solar power station 36,000 km above the ground in an attempt to cut down on greenhouse gases and solve energy crisis which the world faces currently.
According to Xinhua news agency, the solar space station is planned to be much bigger than the Apollo project and International Space Station in the space orbit, it will consist of large solar panels extending to 6 sq km which will enable the panels to capture maximum amount of solar energy. An experimental space solar power station is planned to be in place by 2030, while a commercially viable one to be ready by 2050.
The power station would be a super spacecraft on a geosynchronous orbit equipped with huge solar panels. The electricity generated would be converted to microwaves or lasers and transmitted to a collector on Earth.
In 1941, U.S. science fiction writer Isaac Asimov had published the short story “Reason”, in which a space station transmits energy collected from the sun to various planets using microwave beams. A U.S. scientist Peter Glaser published an article in the journal Science in 1968, claiming a feasible design for the space solar power system.
Wang Xiji, 93, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, says Asimov’s fiction has a scientific basis. Wang is an advocate for the station. “An economically viable space power station would be really huge, with the total area of the solar panels reaching 5 to 6 sq km,” he told Xinhua. The space solar station will be equivalent to 12 of Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square, the largest public square in the world, or nearly two New York Central Parks. “May be people on Earth could see it in the sky at night, like a star,” says Wang.

Advertising

 Since years scientists around the globe are trying to find out solutions for sustainable and environment friendly power generation. It seems that China has mastered the art by planning to construct the first solar power station in space
China plans to construct a massive space solar power station 36,000 km above the ground in an attempt to cut down on greenhouse gases and solve energy crisis which the world faces currently.
According to Xinhua news agency, the solar space station is planned to be much bigger than the Apollo project and International Space Station in the space orbit, it will consist of large solar panels extending to 6 sq km which will enable the panels to capture maximum amount of solar energy. An experimental space solar power station is planned to be in place by 2030, while a commercially viable one to be ready by 2050.
The power station would be a super spacecraft on a geosynchronous orbit equipped with huge solar panels. The electricity generated would be converted to microwaves or lasers and transmitted to a collector on Earth.
In 1941, U.S. science fiction writer Isaac Asimov had published the short story “Reason”, in which a space station transmits energy collected from the sun to various planets using microwave beams. A U.S. scientist Peter Glaser published an article in the journal Science in 1968, claiming a feasible design for the space solar power system.
Wang Xiji, 93, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, says Asimov’s fiction has a scientific basis. Wang is an advocate for the station. “An economically viable space power station would be really huge, with the total area of the solar panels reaching 5 to 6 sq km,” he told Xinhua. The space solar station will be equivalent to 12 of Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square, the largest public square in the world, or nearly two New York Central Parks. “May be people on Earth could see it in the sky at night, like a star,” says Wang.

Advertising