Billionaire Robinhood co-founder launches Aetherflux, a space-based solar power startup
Summary
Its been the stuff of science fiction for decades: to provide gigawatts of cheap, clean power anywhere on Earth, day or night, using satellites that collect and transmit solar energy directly on orbit. Past approaches have mainly studied sending up ultra-expensive, large spacecraft to geostationary orbit, where they could gather sunlight nearly all the time and beam it to a fixed point on Earth. But Aetherflux wants to build a massive constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit, each equipped with a solar array, a battery, and a near-optical infrared laser to transmit the power down to the ground. While the satellites will not be constantly exposed to the sun due to their altitude, and each solar array will not collect high amounts of power on its own, the startup wants to put up thousands of these spacecraft to accumulate massive amounts of energy.The startup was founded by Bhatt late last year and became his full-time focus after he left his leadership role at financial trading platform Robinhood, which he also co-founded. The stretch goal, Bhatt said, is to eventually have each satellite send enough energy back to Earth to power a small neighborhood.Bhatt, whose net worth tops $1.7 billion according to Forbes, has invested millions of his own capital into Aetherflux and is committed to funding through the first demonstration mission, a spokesperson said.