The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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ESA’s Discovery programme recently called for ideas that would answer the question: how do you convert a large amount of solar energy into a useful form and beam it down to Earth or another planetary surface, as efficiently as possible?
With the OSIP call for ideas, ESA aimed to ignite a coordinated initiative to reassess SBSP and see how we can move towards demonstrating its potential for providing inexhaustible, continuously available, clean energy on Earth.
Of 85 ideas received, 13 were selected for funding. The activities have all recently launched to explore a huge range of SBSP technologies, including how to more efficiently collect sunlight and how to safely transmit this power to Earth, as well as how to manufacture and assemble these huge solar power satellites, control them and keep them in the right location.