China plans to install a massive solar power plant in space. The plant will be powered by the country’s upcoming CZ-9 rocket, which is designed to compete with SpaceX’s Starship. A senior Chinese official has compared this ambitious project to “moving the Three Gorges Dam” into geostationary orbit.
The announcement. "We are working on this project now. It is as significant as moving the Three Gorges Dam to a geostationary orbit [22,370 miles] above the Earth,” Long Lehao, a rocket scientist at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, announced in October during a lecture hosted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Long described the initiative as “an incredible project to look forward to.” However, he emphasized that its success will depend on the availability of new superheavy rockets like the CZ-9, given that it would be like “installing a solar array [half-mile wide]” in space.
Context. The Three Gorges Dam, located on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, is one of China’s most ambitious engineering projects. With a generating capacity of 112 TWh, it’s surpassed the Itaipu Dam in Brazil and Paraguay to become the world’s largest hydroelectric power plant.
In addition, the CZ-9 is a massive state-owned rocket currently under development by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. It’s powered by 30 methane engines and designed for landing, featuring a design similar to that of SpaceX’s Starship. By 2030, the CZ-9 is expected to be able to place 100 tons of cargo into low Earth orbit.
An inexhaustible flow of renewable energy. China wants to capture solar energy in space using solar panels constantly exposed to sunlight. Space agencies have been discussing this idea since the 1980s. Earlier concepts, like the Dyson sphere and the Kardashev scale, focused on civilizations harnessing energy directly from their stars and were proposed much earlier.
Additionally, the energy density in space is roughly 10 times greater than that on the Earth’s surface. Space solar power plants could collect this abundant energy from orbit and transmit it to ground stations using microwaves.
Why has space solar power not been implemented yet? First, power transmission presents technical challenges and security risks. However, China has made strides in this area by successfully testing technology using hot air balloons. The country is currently constructing a receiving station in Chongqing for further research.
Second, there’s a logistical issue. Previously, the cost of sending thousands of solar panels into space rendered a space solar power plant unprofitable. However, large reusable rockets like Starship and CZ-9 are expected to change this dramatically. In the end, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has transformed the economics of launching satellites for the Starlink constellation.
Image | Asia Chang
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