Value chain · CLM-1113
In plain terms
This paper does not describe a laser power satellite, though two NASA-funded designs for one exist from 1978-80. It does show how a laser receiver behaves: it needs light about a thousand times brighter than the microwave beam to work well, and even at the level the authors call eye-safe it is about a third as efficient as the microwave receiver.
The claim as recorded
SRC-586 is not a laser space solar power concept: the paper names "space platforms" once and an "integrated satellite-HAPS-UAV-ground network" once, as places its receivers could serve, and gives no aperture, range, transmit power or system efficiency. What it adds is the receiver side of a laser comparison in measured numbers: the best 1.3-1.6 um receiver converts 55.9 per cent at 271 kW/m2, about 1,200 times the 1978 microwave design peak of 230 W/m2 (CLM-0020) and about 27,000 times the ICNIRP public reference level for microwaves (CLM-0008), and about 30 per cent at the 1 kW/m2 the authors call eye-safe, against the microwave rectenna's 85 per cent measured on one air-cooled element (CLM-0939). A laser receiver reaches its efficiency at irradiances three orders of magnitude above where a microwave rectenna is designed to operate, which is the intensity difference behind the hold on CLM-0231, stated here as a design fact and not as a weapons finding.
Evidence behind this: T0-a comparison of held figures; no new measurement.
Scope and limits
Not a system comparison and not a safety finding. The two receiver figures are measured at different maturities (a 2026 5.4 mm2 laboratory chip; a 1980 single element), under different cooling, at different irradiances; the ratio of irradiances is the point, not the ratio of efficiencies. Laser SBSP designs (CLM-1232, CLM-1234), 1970s infrared exposure limits (CLM-1233, CLM-1235) and atmospheric and cloud losses (CLM-1236, CLM-1237) are now held from 1978-80 sources; none is a current standard or a measured orbit-to-ground link, and none is at the 1.3-1.6 um band this paper measures.
What it assumes
That receiver efficiency is the right first comparison; a system comparison would need the transmit side, the atmosphere and the pointing budget, none of which the paper supplies.
Where it comes from
This is the project's own working, shown in full:
p.2, squashed: "provide a foundation for receiver design across terrestrial, aerial, underwater and space platforms"; p.1, depunctuated (the hyphen of free-space falls at a line break): "free-space power beaming and data transmission are also of great interest for unmanned aerial or underwater vehicles"; p.8, normalised: "supporting continuous operation and reduced reliance on batteries or solar alone in integrated satellite-HAPS-UAV-ground network". Those three are the only platform statements: "orbit" does not occur in the 14 page texts, "satellite" only in the p.8 phrase, and "space" otherwise only as "free-space", "design space" and "space-charge" (probed). Arithmetic: 27.1 W/cm2 = 271,000 W/m2; 271,000 / 230 = 1,178; 271,000 / 10 = 27,100; 0.1 W/cm2 = 1,000 W/m2, 1,000 / 230 = 4.3. Efficiencies from CLM-1110 (55.9 and 29.3 per cent) and CLM-0939 (85 per cent, one element, plus 1.5 per cent probable error).
Basis: W/m2 and per cent, from held records
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-002 not published in this releaseQST-036 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-1113
CLM-1113, Energy Aperture, as of 2026-09.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-586
- CLM-1110The best near-infrared laser-to-electricity receiver so far turns 56 per cent of the light into electricity, but only when the light is 271...CLM-1111Before this paper, the best near-infrared laser receivers reached about half efficiency, and only under very bright light; at gentler light...CLM-1112The paper says this colour of infrared is good because the air lets it through and the eye-safety rules allow more of it, but it cites...