Space is back.
Mars, the Moon, satellites for phone signals in disaster zones – and of course lots of nations and billionaires, sending off missions almost every week for commercial or touristic reasons.
We are looking at space for minerals that could help us mine elements for cleaner power, we have had stories about using space mirrors to cool the Earth and of course, there is the sheer joy of exploration for the sake of it. Well this week on the podcast I spoke to Paul Warley from Ascent Solar a US company trying to cut the carbon footprint of mankind in this new net zero frontier.
By inventing a thin sheet of solar cells which can be wrapped, stretched and moulded to any shape or use, have they just discovered a pathway to cleaner exploration? Their flexible solar material is much lighter than normal solar panels used in space, super thin and offers a greater degree of operation, – but most importantly if it’s hit by a bit of space debris or meteroite it does not shatter and so won’t make more space junk.
Paul told me: “The primary solar used in space is what’s called gallium arsenide. It starts off with extra high efficiency but then degrades. So they actually have to replace it on the International Space Station, every so on. What makes our product very, very unique is we’re somewhere between 5 or 25% of the weight of any product that’s taken up into space.
“And when you’re talking about the cost of getting it into space, to get it up into the lower orbit, it might cost $25 to $50,000 a kilogram and that compares to $250,000 a kilogram. But to get stuff to the moon today would cost somewhere between a half a million and $1 million a kilogram, we can do it for $200-300K.
“So you’re looking for stuff that doesn’t degrade, which we shouldn’t degrade. You’re looking for stuff that is light. And the other thing is, is we can put our stuff on about any array you want, because you would basically roll it out and attach it.”
The material they use is a special polymer which also has other benefits in terms of the environnment.
“We don’t create space debris to any degree. This junk hits a normal solar panel, it’s gonna break and more make more debris. if it breaks, even if it hits a section of the panel, most likely the entire panel goes, whereas ours would just be that little piece that’s, knocked out, so it keeps working.”
Listen to the podcast as we discuss where the new space race will take us and remember to subscribe and share!
