Space Solar, a deep-tech developing space-based solar power and wireless power beaming, has secured a £1.3 million research contract from the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) to develop RF power beaming technology for high altitude platforms. The award makes Space Solar one of 18 funded R&D Creators in ARIA's Enduring Atmospheric Platforms programme, led by Programme Director Rico Chandra and backed by £70 million over 3.5 years.
Solar-powered stratospheric aircraft can face significant energy constraints at UK latitudes in winter. Project HAWK will explore a different approach, separating the energy source from the aircraft: a ground-based transmitter beams power by radio frequency at 5.8 GHz to a lightweight conformal receiving antenna, or rectenna, built into the platform's wing. That could enable an aircraft to draw power from the ground regardless of season, weather or time of day, with potential applications spanning communications, Earth observation and other persistent stratospheric services.
The wider programme is working towards a single galvanising demonstration: suspending and powering communications payloads in the stratosphere above the UK for a week. Within that ambition, it targets power beaming of a net 300 watts of continuous DC power delivered to a 20 kg payload at stratospheric altitude for at least a week, at an operational cost below £500 per hour by the end of the programme, with a route to below £100 per hour. High Altitude Pseudo-Satellites are intended as the physical backbone for next-generation advanced communications and a path to connectivity for underserved regions.
Demonstrated capability comes from HARRIER, the Space Solar prototype billed as the world's first retrodirective phased array capable of 360-degree beam steering, which was tested at Queen's University Belfast's anechoic chamber. Those tests validated the digital models and provided the technical foundation for scaling the technology to 5.8 GHz.
Project HAWK will advance the rectenna technology from Technology Readiness Level 3 towards TRL 7 over 36 months, running in three stages and ending with an integrated flight demonstration aboard the Prismatic PHASA-35 HAPS aircraft. Two partner organisations are working alongside Space Solar, coordinated through a joint Programme Steering Committee: Prismatic Ltd, the BAE Systems company developing PHASA-35, and MuWave Limited, which is developing the ground-based transmitter.
Project HAWK applies our core power beaming technology to one of the most compelling near-term markets: persistent stratospheric flight. Energy is one of the central constraints for HAPS. With ARIA funding, we can take our rectenna technology from the laboratory towards an integrated flight demonstration, while building the UK capability needed to manufacture and scale the technology.
