In the previous posts Chinese ambitious Space Solar Power Station wasdiscussed . And also the Chinese aspirations to become global energy supplier.

Hence they have planed a 4 step execution  to proceed with this .

Currently the execution of this space solar power has just taken a baby step and it is still in the infant stage . The four stages of execution of this Space Based Solar Power are as follows .

Stage I: 2011 -2020

In this phase CAST(China’s Space Exploration company – government owned) has decided to carry out a full fledged analysis on the Space Solar Power station to carry out a detailed study about the vital technologies that has to be implemented and also the Research and Development has to be done to improve the current technologies to a state of the art .

To analyse the limitations in beaming the energy in the form of waves from the Space Station to the ground station . And figuring out a better option between Microwave energy or laser to transmit power or if any other better option is available to transmit power in the most effective way .

Stage II: 2021 -2025 years

This stage requires the use of China’s Space station platform , China’s astronauts will develop the nation’s first low-orbit space solar . Focus on the  feasibility to deploy large space structures to extract solar power .  Implementing  and  testing the energy transferring technology(laser or Microwave)  from the space station to the ground station

Phase III: 2026 -2036 years

Further focusing on R & D to develop more innovative technologies that can reduce the cost of solar panels , Capturing maximum solar efficiency and converting them to electricity .  Beaming with at least 80% of energy  efficiency  back to earth .  Assembling the solar panels in the space to harness the sun’s rays and also to solve the primarily issues in this method and sort out them .Testing the primary installation completely and the system is delivered in the geo synchronous orbit .

Phase IV: 2036 -2050 years

This phase aims completely in the space solar power station’s commercial production of electricity and power the millions of homes in china . This also involves the process of maintaining the solar power station .

Challenges Facing this project

This Space Solar power project has lot of challenges that has to be sorted out before its take off . Taking a million tons of  load to space with the space vehicle and at current cost will take billions of dollar . Another one is an effective way to transfer energy back to earth . When the energy is  transferred using the current technology there would be a wastage of around 50% . This will drastically affect the project’s output .  Third most important factor is cost there is an estimation that the cost would be upto 300 billion to 1 trillion US dollars .