🚀 Could Starship unlock unlimited solar energy?

The race is on to get to Mars.

The world’s big space powers are racing to send the first humans to Mars. At the same time, scientists are racing to create technologies that can fly crewed Mars missions to the Red Planet in a fraction of the time.

Many argue we should be dealing with problems on Earth before sending humans to Mars. Well, space technology greatly benefits people on Earth. Case in point: SpaceX’s Starship could unlock a space-based solar energy revolution. Let’s look into the details.

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AEROSPACE ENGINEERING SPOTLIGHT

Starship could help startup harvest unlimited solar energy

Michigan-based startup Virtus Solis aims to use SpaceX’s Starship to harness unlimited solar energy from space.

Virtus Solis envisions massive solar arrays placed in the highly elliptical Molniya orbit around Earth. If all goes to plan, their arrays will provide power anywhere on Earth at any time.

One of the key stumbling blocks for this technology is the high cost of successive launches. This is because Virtus Solis’ arrays will be up to 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) wide and their many pieces will be assembled by robots in space.

That’s where Starship comes in.

Starship’s fully reusable technology will drastically cut down the cost of satellite launches, allowing companies like Virtus Solis to send big projects to orbit.

And the company has a history with SpaceX. Its founder, John Bucknell, is a former SpaceX rocket engineer who left the company to found Virtus Solis in 2019.

Bucknell’s strong ties with SpaceX mean Starship’s capabilities form an integral part of his company’s mission. Starship will eventually transfer hundreds of 1.6-meter-wide modular pieces to the Molniya orbit in a single journey. They will then be assembled in orbit by automated robots.

The company’s technology is still in the research and development stage and it aims to have a functioning array in orbit by the end of the decade. It claims that a network of 16 arrays could provide global coverage by delivering microwave energy to massive receiving antennas on the ground.

Dr. Edward Tate, the company’s co-founder and CTO, also outlined the company’s methodology in a recent episode of Interesting Engineering’s Lexicon podcast.

First, Virtus Solis’ array technology converts sunlight into electrical energy, which is shaped into a coherent beam. This allows for the direct delivery of highly focused energy to a receiver. This invisible radio frequency energy (RF) is then transformed into usable power through a device known as a rectenna.

“A rectenna is kind of this magic device. It’s like an antenna with another circuit added to it that can convert RF into something usable,” Tate explained on Lexicon. “In fact, the receivers that we’ve got can be twice as efficient or more than a typical solar plant on the ground.”

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AERO BULLETIN

What’s the fastest way to get to Mars?

Using existing technologies, NASA estimates it would take about seven months to fly humans to Mars.

Many scientists and organizations argue this is way too long a travel time, as it would expose astronauts to high levels of cosmic radiation. What’s more, the toll such a long trip would take on an astronaut’s mental health would also affect their efficiency.

Here are three concepts that could drastically reduce the travel time to Mars.

100,000 N thrust-powered nuclear rocket

US-based company Howe Industries has been working on a pulsed plasma rocket (PPR) concept that could send humans to Mars in only two months.

The company claims its technology is capable of producing up to 100,000 N of thrust with a specific impulse (Isp) of 5,000 seconds.

PPR is an evolution of the Pulsed Fission Fusion concept. It is a fission-based nuclear power system that produces thrust via controlled splitting of atomic nuclei

Ad Astra’s VASIMR engine

Ad Astra’s Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) engine is a high-power propulsion system that can heat plasma from anywhere between one to five million degrees.

By doing so, it provides thrust at speeds of up to 123,000 miles per hour (197,950 kilometers per hour), meaning the engine could power a nuclear electric rocket to Mars in roughly 45 days.

In a 2023 interview with IE, former NASA astronaut and Ad Astra founder Dr. Franklin Chang Díaz said “for me, this is the one thing that needs to be done for humans to go to Mars.”

Lightsail probes to Mars

Though this concept wouldn’t send humans to Mars, it’s worth mentioning as it may be the fastest Mars-bound spacecraft concept in existence.

Last year, a team of scientists investigated the potential of aerographite as a material for solar sails that could eventually travel to Mars and beyond. They simulated solar sail spacecraft with a mass of up to 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) and a cross-sectional area of 1,119 square feet (104 square meters).

Their simulations showed that a solar sail spacecraft could reach Mars in as little as 26 days. While it couldn’t carry humans, such a spacecraft could carry basic scientific equipment and it could also be sent to the far reaches of our solar system.