Space-Based Solar Power Starts With Wireless Power on Earth
episodePreviously titled “Space-Based Solar Power For The MTV Generation” — renamed by the publisher on Sep 18, 2026
Transcript
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What is TerraSpark’s first public demonstration of wireless power beaming?
We're gonna do a one up on on the chilling of beers. So our plan is to have as our first major ground based demonstration of wireless power beaming a hundred meter distance uh demonstration. So the one you're referring to, we beamed power uh over thirty six meters. This was between ESA and Airbus and a countr company called Emrod. Thirty six meters and a couple of kilowatts of power. in in this kind of quite limited audience demonstration of of power beaming. This time with TerraSpark, we really want to bring wireless power transmission out to the world. We're not interested in doing a scientific experiment and writing about it in some research papers which nobody are g is gonna read, but really show the world that wireless power beaming is a thing, that it works, it can be used in an operational sense.
So our plan is to power a live music concert. with wireless power for the first time. We are going to be doing the real MTB unplugged.
Well, speaking of time to go, it's time to bring our guest, Sanjay Vajendrin, back on the show. Sanjay was formerly with uh European Space Agency. He has now started his own company with an incredible group of founders called TerraSpark. Sanjay, welcome back to the show in your new rejuvenated space based solar power energy.
Thanks so much, I mean Mark. Great to be back on a year since we uh last did this. Maybe this will become an annual thing.
It will become an annual thing, and I'm just gonna point out what I love the most about your the your new TerraSpark energy team is that the website leads engineering first, Europe rooted, and it's so nice. to have the European angle again. Every time it comes up, I'm like, yes, it's not just America.
We're Europe's answer to energy from space. Love it. Love it.
Well, all right, let's have a let's do a fun, quick little experiment, Sanjay. Imagine you are a journalist tracking the space-based solar power market. And over the last 30 to 60 days, what are you excited about that the market is is screaming from the mountaintops?
I think we're living in once again an energy crisis. The whole uh Middle East situation in the last weeks has really brought it even more to people's uh minds how dependent we are on secure available energy. and how dependent some regions of the world are on access to that energy coming from outside and not having much control about that. And how it affects everyday um people's everyday lives, the availability of that energy and that cost of that energy. So it is really timely that solutions, new solutions are being brought to the fore to uh address some of these long standing uh dependencies and challenges we've had, which we've just never had solutions for. And and patch fix each time we have a crisis, we we try to solve it in the short term and then go back to that that fragile situation which then break breaks again sometime later.
So what we're seeing is with the huge demand uh increase in energy and and electricity that's needed for various applications, particularly data centers uh in the Western uh world. And this uh shock once again in being able to to get energy just for today's needs, let alone the growing needs of the future. Um, I think this is just making it more and more um uh possible to be able to have conversations around what could be the solutions that actually solve this problem in the long term.
In the a lot of the the news that I see, the energy crisis, the energy problems that it's causing far outweigh or seem to me to outweigh the time spent on actually discussing the conflict, on discussing the diplomacy of the conflict. It seems to be very Much about the energy problem of it, um, which I think says a lot about where we are and how we think about. War.
It's kind of very selfish when you think about it. It's the the how does this affect me? Um uh effect and on the conversations rather than what what's really happening uh over there that's that's causing uh these secondary effects. But energy is so fundamental to our lives that any disruption in that, for whatever that reason is, we're we're immediately trying to resolve that that situation of how do I get that that energy.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is TerraSpark’s first public demonstration of wireless power beaming?
0:00–6:49
2
How is the current global energy crisis influencing interest in space‑based solar power?
6:49–13:28
3
Why could space‑based solar power be a threat to existing power structures?
13:28–21:20
4
How will TerraSpark power a live music concert in Portugal using wireless power?
21:20–29:24
5
What is the D‑Cube Arrakis mission and TerraSpark’s role on it?
29:24–37:23
6
What are the advantages and trade‑offs of radio‑frequency versus laser power beaming?
37:23–44:18
7
How does spectrum regulation (ITU, national bodies) affect power‑beaming projects?
44:18–51:13
8
What are the next steps and long‑term vision for scaling space‑based solar power?
51:13–52:14
Speakers
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