Research analysis

August 30, 2026 Microwave or laser: trading wireless power paths for space solar power

A 2002 Boeing/NASA preprint compares microwave and laser wireless power transmission for space solar power. It argues each option has system-level strengths and sketches near-term 100 kWe and 10 kWe flight demonstrators.

August 27, 2026 Compute-in-memory accelerators under space radiator limits

Iowa State researchers model AI accelerators in orbit and find that compute-in-memory architectures avoid the GPU hotspots that force thermal throttling when radiators are small. The work is simulation-based, but it makes the spacecraft thermal budget a first-class hardware co-design variable.

August 27, 2026 Constitutional AI verification for orbital power safety

Glass Box inserts a physics-grounded verifier between an onboard AI policy and spacecraft actuators, using six constraints and seven temporal invariants to block unsafe power and thermal decisions in simulation. It is a framework, not flight software, but it reframes spacecraft power management as real-time AI governance.

August 26, 2026 NSF program aims to model radiation damage in GaN RF power amplifiers

A new NSF award supports Texas Tech University and Los Alamos National Laboratory in building a radiation-aware compact model for AlGaN/GaN HEMTs. Preliminary temperature-baseline data already contradict the gamma equals 2 assumption common in existing compact models.

August 25, 2026 The 1984 case that space nuclear power needed requirements first

A 1984 Air Force paper from the NASA Space Power Workshop diagnoses space nuclear power as a requirements problem, not a physics problem. Its argument that missions above tens of kilowatts cannot rely on solar and that institutional definition must precede funding remains relevant four decades later.

August 25, 2026 The 1984 solar cell debate that still shapes space arrays

A 1984 JPL paper from the NASA Space Power Workshop compares silicon, gallium arsenide, and emerging thin-film cells for space. Its central tension between flight-proven silicon and higher-performing but heavier, costlier GaAs remains the core trade in modern array design.

August 24, 2026 Fuel-optimal asteroid hopping with physics-informed Bayesian optimization

A physics-informed Bayesian optimization warm-start supplies a collision-aware initial guess for sequential convex programming of fuel-optimal hops on 433 Eros. In closed-loop Monte Carlo simulation the resulting trajectories track to meter-level accuracy and a representative five-site tour consumes about a fifth of the 30 kg propellant budget.

August 23, 2026 Active heat Q-switching for pulsed thermal power

Researchers demonstrate a fluidic thermal oscillator whose effective quality factor Q can be switched between a high-retention charging state and a fast-release state. A lab device using water achieved roughly five-fold transient power amplification, while model projections suggest 20 to 40 times for insulated liquid-metal and stacked designs.

August 23, 2026 Gigawatt hydrogen hubs and the load-model gap

A preprint uses open-source steady-state, electromechanical, and electromagnetic-transient tools to analyze a 500 MW hydrogen hub on the IEEE 39-bus test system. It finds that standard load models underestimate post-fault recovery time and proposes a modified PERC1 model with a 150 ms safety latch and 0.95 p.u. restart threshold.

August 22, 2026 Launch affordability and the space solar power case

Edgar Zapata's 2015 NASA presentation compares the cost barriers facing Mars exploration and space solar power, arguing that public-private partnerships modeled on COTS could reduce launch and spacecraft costs enough to make large-scale space power programs feasible.

August 22, 2026 Microwave electrothermal thruster with magnetic nozzle

NASA Lewis researchers proposed a 30 kW microwave electrothermal thruster that heats hydrogen, helium, or nitrogen through a plasma discharge at 915 MHz. The paper describes the apparatus under assembly and predicts over 95 percent microwave absorption, but it reports no measured test results.

August 21, 2026 A 1984 Boeing study made a strong case for flywheel storage in orbit

Sidney Gross of Boeing told a 1984 NASA workshop that flywheel systems could exceed 90 percent efficiency, regulate bus voltage within 2 percent, and outlast batteries on space station missions. The paper is a design analysis, not a flight demonstration, and some claims remain partially unproven.

August 21, 2026 Orbital solar power could free a lunar base from the south pole

NASA Marshall studied placing a solar power satellite in lunar polar orbit to beam 35 kW of continuous power to a lunar outpost, ending the need to site the base at the south pole or use a fission reactor. The concept is a paper study with a 43.4 t mass budget and assumed, not measured, end-to-end efficiency.

August 19, 2026 Fission Surface Power project: where NASA stands now

NASA's Fission Surface Power project aims to demonstrate a tens-of-kilowatt class nuclear fission reactor on the Moon in the next decade. A 2024 DragonCon presentation by NASA Glenn authors Kaldon and Presby captures the current project status, technical goals, and forward plans.

August 19, 2026 GAO on space reactor development: coordination and safety lessons

The GAO's 1987 report on space reactor power systems development found management coordination gaps among sponsoring organizations and concerns about safety-related tasks. Nearly 40 years later, the same coordination and safety challenges recur as NASA, DOE, and DOD pursue new space nuclear programs.

August 18, 2026 Solar power in extreme space environments: the Juno precedent

The EESP project at NASA Glenn develops photovoltaic technology for missions far from the Sun, where solar intensity drops with the square of distance and radiation degrades cell performance. The Juno mission to Jupiter demonstrated that solar power is viable at 5 AU with large arrays, but the challenge scales with distance.

August 17, 2026 ASRG life certification: 17-year reliability for dynamic space power

The ASRG life certification plan confronts the fundamental problem that a Stirling engine has moving parts that wear, and that no analytical model can fully substitute for decades of test time. NASA Glenn's plan emphasizes long-term Stirling engine testing and inspection where analysis is not practical.

August 16, 2026 High-voltage PMAD: reducing cable mass on high-power spacecraft

NASA Glenn's 2012 Space Power Workshop presentation frames the central architecture trade for high-power spacecraft PMAD: raise distribution voltage to shrink cable mass and ohmic losses, at the cost of arc risk and converter complexity. Cable mass becomes a dominant fraction of power system mass as power levels climb.

August 15, 2026 Lithium-ion battery limits and the beyond-Li-ion frontier for space

NASA Glenn reports state-of-the-art Li-ion at 200 Wh/kg plateauing at 300 Wh/kg, short of the 500+ Wh/kg NASA needs. Li-air offers 3400 Wh/kg theoretical but fails after a handful of cycles due to electrolyte decomposition.

August 14, 2026 LLNL's 1 MW laser solar power beaming concept from LEO

A 2009 LLNL technical report proposes a 1 MW laser power beaming system on a single Falcon 9 to LEO, using a 50 percent efficient diode-pumped laser, 40 percent efficient concentrator PV, and inflatable optics. No integrated system has been built.

August 13, 2026 Roll-out solar arrays: from ISS experiment to flight heritage

NASA's Roll-Out Solar Array uses carbon fiber composite booms that self-deploy without mechanisms, and has flown on the ISS as both a test article and operational iROSA augmentations. Maxar has infused the modular design into commercial GEO satellites.

August 12, 2026 The GaAs solar cell radiation handbook: degradation as design input

A 1996 NASA/JPL contractor report compiled GaAs solar cell radiation degradation data into a handbook with equations, damage coefficients, and a calculation methodology that lets spacecraft designers predict end-of-life array performance.

August 11, 2026 Regenerative fuel cells for lunar night survival

NASA Glenn traded regenerative fuel cell architectures for lunar and Martian surface power, finding that RFCs storing energy as compressed H2 and O2 can bridge the two-week lunar night at lower mass than batteries for long-duration storage.

August 10, 2026 Maturation of dynamic Stirling power convertors for radioisotope power systems

NASA's RPS Program, with DOE, is developing Dynamic Radioisotope Power Systems (DRPS) using Stirling convertors that offer higher efficiency than thermoelectric RTGs. The effort builds on SRG-110 and ASRG heritage but no dynamic RPS has ever flown in space, and the maturation gap between bench-level demonstration and flight qualification remains open.