Power Beaming Companies

Mantis Space is building a constellation intended to sell power to other satellites. Its spacecraft sit in lower medium Earth orbit where they remain almost continuously in sunlight, and beam energy by high-precision laser down to customer satellites passing through Earth's shadow, which absorb it using the solar arrays they already carry. The appeal is that eclipse periods force satellite designers to carry batteries sized for the dark portion of every orbit, a significant mass and cost penalty. Chief executive Eric Truitt says that by tuning laser wavelength to the absorption peaks of the target's solar cells, the delivered energy converts 20 to 30 percent more efficiently than raw sunlight. The company was founded in 2025 by Truitt and emerged from stealth in March 2026 with a $10 million seed round co-led by Rule 1 Ventures and Montauk Capital, which incubated it in its venture studio. New Mexico and the city of Albuquerque awarded roughly $24 million toward a 2,000 square metre headquarters and manufacturing hub there. A prototype payload and on-orbit customer demonstration are targeted for 2028.

PowerLight Technologies

Kent, United States commercial

PowerLight Technologies (formerly LaserMotive), founded in 2007 and headquartered in Kent, Washington, is the pioneer and leading commercial developer of laser power beaming — using high-intensity laser beams to transmit electrical energy wirelessly over distances from meters to kilometers, converting photons back to electricity at the receiving end through photovoltaic cells optimized for the specific laser wavelength. PowerLight's laser power beaming technology works by generating a high-power (hundreds of watts to kilowatts) laser beam at a specific near-infrared wavelength (typically 1064 nm or 1550 nm), transmitting it through air or vacuum to a receiver equipped with bandgap-matched photovoltaic cells that convert the monochromatic laser light to electricity at efficiencies exceeding 50% (far higher than broadband solar cells because the cells are tuned to one wavelength rather than the full solar spectrum). This enables transmitting 400+ watts of electrical power over 1 kilometer with demonstrated hardware — the achievement that won the NASA Centennial Challenge Power Beam competition. Applications span several markets: persistent high-altitude pseudo-satellite (HAPS) platforms and stratospheric drones that can receive continuous laser power from ground stations to stay aloft indefinitely without onboard fuel; tethered underwater vehicles and ROVs powered through fiber optic power-over-fiber rather than electrical cables (eliminating insulation and grounding challenges); remote sensing platforms in locations without electrical infrastructure; and ultimately space-based solar power (SBSP) — beaming solar energy collected in GEO orbit to Earth's surface as microwave or laser power. PowerLight is developing power beaming for US military forward operating base power supply, where diesel fuel resupply creates logistical vulnerabilities and cost. The company competes with Emrod (New Zealand) and Virtus Solis in the commercial laser and microwave power beaming market, holding a technology lead from its decade-plus development experience and NASA challenge validation.

Aetherflux is a San Carlos, California-based space-based solar power (SBSP) startup founded in 2024 by Baiju Bhatt — co-founder and former CEO of Robinhood Markets — pursuing the long-studied concept of collecting solar energy in orbit and beaming it to Earth as infrared laser radiation, with $60 million raised from Breakthrough Energy Ventures (Bill Gates's climate tech fund), Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), and NEA for initial development targeting US military forward operating bases and remote power-constrained installations. The space-based solar power concept is technically elegant: solar panels in LEO orbit receive continuous, unattenuated sunlight (no atmosphere, no nighttime shadow for most orbits) and convert it to electricity, which then drives a high-power infrared laser transmitter (typically 1550nm wavelength for safety and atmospheric transmission efficiency) that beams concentrated photonic energy to a ground receiver (photovoltaic array tuned to convert the laser wavelength). The receiver — a compact 'rectenna' or laser-PV array — can be deployed in remote locations without grid infrastructure, potentially delivering kilowatts to megawatts of reliable power from a single satellite at any location on Earth. The military application is the initial target because DoD's cost of delivering fuel to forward operating bases in conflict zones averages $400/gallon when fully burdened with logistics chain costs — making the high cost of early power-beaming satellites economically competitive against diesel generators. DARPA has previously funded power-beaming research (SBIR programs), and the Naval Research Laboratory demonstrated wireless power transfer from orbit with the PRAM experiment on the X-37B in 2020. Aetherflux aims to move from experiment to operational service. Aetherflux's technical differentiation from previous SBSP concepts (which typically proposed microwave transmission with large phased arrays and large ground antennas) is the use of tightly focused infrared laser beams: smaller transmitter aperture required on orbit, smaller ground receiver footprint, and the directional concentration of energy delivery. The eye safety and aircraft safety challenges of high-power laser beams from orbit require sophisticated tracking and interlock systems to prevent inadvertent exposure. LEO orbit's lower altitude (compared to GEO proposals) reduces transmission path loss and satellite mass requirements while introducing eclipse periods that must be managed. Competitors in power beaming include Virtus Solis, Solaris (ESA study), and various national programs in UK, Japan, and China.

Space Solar

Didcot, United Kingdom commercial

Space Solar is a UK-based space-based solar power (SBSP) development company founded in 2022 and headquartered in Didcot, Oxfordshire, pursuing one of the most technically ambitious energy concepts: orbital solar power stations that collect sunlight continuously in geostationary orbit and beam energy wirelessly to Earth's surface using microwave or laser transmission. Space Solar targets an operational satellite power plant by 2030, with intermediate demonstration milestones in the late 2020s. The SBSP concept is compelling for energy transition: GEO satellites experience sunlight 24 hours per day (eclipsed only during brief equinox periods), eliminating the intermittency problem of terrestrial solar (which averages roughly 15–25% capacity factor due to night, clouds, and seasons). A single GEO SBSP platform of sufficient scale could theoretically beam multiple gigawatts of power to a rectenna on the ground. The received microwave energy density at Earth's surface would be lower than safe human exposure limits and far lower than direct sunlight — but the persistent power delivery matches baseload demand in a way no terrestrial renewable can. Space Solar's technical approach uses lightweight deployable photovoltaic arrays and phased-array microwave transmitters assembled in orbit, with power beamed at approximately 2.45 GHz to ground receiving stations (rectennas) that convert the microwave energy to DC electricity. The company has partnered with Transition Labs, an Iceland-based clean energy development firm, to provide renewable electricity to Reykjavik Energy — a natural first customer given Iceland's decarbonization goals and its high-latitude position (which reduces GEO SBSP geometry efficiency somewhat but makes the marketing narrative compelling). Space Solar's primary technical and business challenges are enormous: launching and assembling hundreds of thousands of square meters of photovoltaic arrays in GEO requires either radically cheaper launch costs or in-space assembly capabilities not yet demonstrated at commercial scale. The UK government has commissioned studies on SBSP feasibility, and the European Space Agency's SOLARIS initiative is building an R&D roadmap. Space Solar competes conceptually with Virtus Solis, Caltech's MAPLE demonstration (first wirelessly transmitted power from orbit to Earth in 2023), and Overview Energy in the nascent SBSP market.

Star Catcher Industries

Jacksonville, United States commercial

Star Catcher Industries is a Jacksonville, Florida-based space power startup founded in 2024 with the ambitious mission of building the world's first orbital energy grid — a space-based power distribution infrastructure that delivers electrical energy to satellites via directed optical (laser) power beaming, enabling satellites to recharge their batteries from a relay satellite rather than depending entirely on their own solar panels. The technology foundation is optical power beaming: a high-power near-infrared laser beam is directed from a power-source satellite (or eventually a dedicated ground station) to a photovoltaic receiver on the target satellite. The photovoltaic receiver converts the laser photons to electricity at 40-60% efficiency at optimized wavelengths (typically 808nm or 1064nm), charging the target satellite's batteries. Star Catcher holds the current world record for optical power transfer at 1.1 kW — a ground demonstration milestone that validates the laser, pointing, and receiver technology at a commercially meaningful power level. The $12.25 million seed round led by Initialized Capital (the early-stage VC firm co-founded by Garry Tan, who became Y Combinator's president) signals institutional investor confidence in both the founding team and the market thesis. Initialized has backed companies including Reddit, Coinbase, and Instacart — its Star Catcher bet reflects belief that space power infrastructure is a venture-scale opportunity. Applications that drive the business case: military reconnaissance satellites that require continuous high-power operation during eclipse periods (where solar panels generate nothing) represent premium-paying early adopters; GEO satellite operators with degraded solar arrays could extend satellite operational life by supplementing power; and future space manufacturing or processing facilities will require far more power than photovoltaics alone can provide at practical launch mass. An orbital power grid — a constellation of laser relay satellites positioned to ensure any satellite can receive a power beam on demand — could fundamentally change space power economics. A 2026 orbital demonstration mission would validate the pointing, tracking, power conversion, and thermal management systems in actual space environment conditions. Competitors and adjacent programs include Caltech's MAPLE (Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment, ISS demonstration 2023), ESA's SOLARIS (microwave space solar power study), and startup Virtus Solis (European SBSP). Star Catcher's optical/laser approach — rather than microwave — offers tighter beam divergence and smaller receiver aperture but requires precise pointing.