Caltech’s Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) is not the sole endeavor dedicated to realizing the potential of space-based solar power. In a public-private partnership announced a few days before Caltech’s breakthrough, Japan’s space agency, JAXA, revealed plans to transmit solar power from space by 2025. The project leader, a professor from Kyoto University, has been exploring space-based solar power since 2009. In 2015, JAXA achieved its own significant milestone when scientists transmitted 1.8 kilowatts of power—equivalent to powering an electric kettle—over a distance of more than 50 meters to a wireless receiver.
Founded in 2011, the Space Solar Power Project at Caltech encompasses multiple experiments, including MAPLE. In addition to proving the efficacy of different cell types in surviving the rigors of space, the SSPD-1 is also conducting the Deployable on-Orbit ultraLight Composite Experiment (DOLCE). This experiment involves a six-by-six feet structure that showcases the architecture, packaging scheme, and deployment mechanisms of a modular spacecraft, although it has yet to be deployed.
