Tag: Laser

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Pulse Space wins Pentagon backing for laser power

Illustration: Satellite in orbit with laser light striking solar arrays
An artist’s conception shows a satellite receiving energy from a laser beam. (Credit: Pulse Space via Vimeo)

Bellevue, Wash.-based Pulse Space says it has received a $40 million award from the U.S. Space Force to develop technologies for laser-based power beaming and orbital tracking systems.

The startup, founded in 2022, is working on a system that would collect energy using solar arrays and send that energy via a laser beam to remote nodes in space. The technologies developed for the system could also be used to track objects in orbit and transmit data.

“This historic $40 million award is a defining moment for Pulse Space, and I am exceptionally proud of our team for making it happen,” Karl Stedman, Pulse Space’s founder and CEO, said in a news release. “We are honored to partner with the United States Space Force to mature our laser-based technologies and are proud to share this massive step forward with our investors and shareholders. Pulse’s technical development platform is helping pave the way toward that future.”

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PowerLight uses a laser beam to keep military drone aloft

Powerlight laser system on left, laser-powered drone on the right
PowerLight's laser system (at left) beamed power to the military drone shown at right. (PowerLight Photos)

Kent, Wash.-based PowerLight Technologies says its laser power beaming system has been used successfully to keep a military-grade, fixed-wing drone in the air for hours during a series of tests for the Department of Defense.

The flight demonstrations concluded this month at the Poinsett Electronic Combat Range at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C. The tests were conducted in partnership with Kraus Hamdani Aerospace, sponsored by U.S. Central Command and the Pentagon’s Operational Energy – Innovation Directorate.

PowerLight’s system was installed on a KHA K1000ULE drone, which operates under a $270 million deployment contract from the AFCENT Battle Lab. The tests demonstrated end-to-end operation of a kilowatt-class wireless power system, from target acquisition and precision tracking through beam delivery and safety management.

During the tests, the beaming system acquired and tracked the drone at altitudes up to 5,000 feet, delivering power while steering and focusing the infrared laser beam in real time.

PowerLight, formerly known as LaserMotive, started out more than 15 years ago with power-beaming systems capable of keeping small quadcopters in the air continuously. The latest tests marked the first demonstration of a wireless system capable of sustained, autonomous power delivery at operationally relevant ranges and power levels for a large, fixed-wing military drone.

Currently, such drones must land to refuel or recharge once their onboard power source is depleted. Continuous wireless power could theoretically keep them airborne indefinitely.

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Amazon reveals that its satellites are using lasers

Illustration: Globe with satellite mesh pattern and laser connection highlighted
This graphic shows how Project Kuiper would use optical signaling between satellites. (Amazon Illustration)

Ending years of speculation, Amazon has acknowledged that its Project Kuiper satellites will use laser-based links to communicate with each other, and says the system has already been successfully tested in orbit.

Such a system — known as optical inter-satellite links, or OISL — passes along data more quickly and efficiently than sending signals down from satellites to ground stations, through fiber-optic cables and then back up to other satellites.

“With optical inter-satellite links across our satellite constellation, Project Kuiper will effectively operate as a mesh network in space,” Rajeev Badyal, Project Kuiper’s vice president of technology, said today in a news release. “This system is designed fully in-house to optimize for speed, cost and reliability, and the entire architecture has worked flawlessly from the very start.”

Amazon said the infrared laser system was tested using two prototype satellites that were launched into low Earth orbit in October. The system was able to maintain data transmission speeds of 100 gigabits per second (Gbps) over a distance of nearly 621 miles (1,000 kilometers) during test windows lasting an hour or more.

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How laser beams can power up 5G networks

Power beaming system for 5G
Artwork shows how laser beaming stations can transmit power wirelessly to 5G base stations and drones. (Ericsson / PowerLight Illustration)

Beaming power wirelessly using laser beams has been the stuff of science fiction for decades — but Kent, Wash.-based PowerLight Technologies and Ericsson, the Swedish-based multinational telecommunications company, have shown how it can become a reality for 5G wireless service.

It may take a couple of years for PowerLight’s beamed-power system to get integrated into Ericsson’s 5G equipment, but the proof-of-concept demonstration could help usher in an age when wireless power is as widely accepted as wireless communication is today.

“The idea that Ericsson is promoting is, we now have wireless connectivity,” PowerLight CEO Richard Gustafson told GeekWire. “It’s time to cut the final cord — and that’s the power cord.”

Gustafson said PowerLight is taking a “crawl, walk, run” approach to wireless power.

“That is not to go from our proof of concept to an urban environment, but to start to work toward packaging for an environment such as disaster response or emergency response, where you’ve got to get equipment up and running quickly,” he said.

The demonstration for Ericsson was conducted at and around PowerLight’s facilities in Kent at the end of July.

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Way-out technologies win NASA’s support

Nuclear thermal propulsion
Future spaceships could use nuclear thermal propulsion to get to Mars quickly. (Illustration via USNC-Tech)

NASA’s latest crop of space technology grants will fund work on projects ranging from power-beaming lasers for lunar missions to high-temperature testing of components for nuclear-powered rockets.

Those are just a couple of the 365 concepts attracting a total of $45 million in grants from NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs, also known as SBIR and STTR.

Jim Reuter, associate administrator for the space agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, said the release of the SBIR/STTR Phase I solicitation was accelerated by two months to help small-scale tech ventures cope with the COVID-19 crisis.

“At NASA, we recognize that small businesses are facing unprecedented challenges due to the pandemic. … We hope the expedited funding helps provide a near-term boost for future success,” Reuter said today in a news release.

This year’s batch of SBIR/STTR Phase I grants will go to 289 small businesses and 47 research institutions across the country. More than 30% of the awards are going to first-time NASA SBIR/STTR recipients.

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PowerLight hits its targets with laser power beaming

Powerlight’s laser power beaming system is tested at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Maryland. (USNRL via YouTube)

Wireless power transmission has been the stuff of science fiction for more than a century, but now PowerLight Technologies is turning it into science fact … with frickin’ laser beams.

“Laser power is closer than you think,” PowerLight CEO Richard Gustafson told me this week.

This is much more than a lab experiment: Gustafson said his company, which is headquartered in Kent, Wash., is wrapping up a $9.5 million demonstration project for the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.

In 2019, PowerLight showed that its power-beaming system can transmit 400 watts of power — enough to fire up an array of lights, laptops and a coffeemaker. In 2020, it followed up with a demonstration of a lightweight power receiver suitable for drones. The project proved to the Navy’s satisfaction that PowerLight’s laser system could be operated safely without endangering people who get in the beam’s way.

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First Mode gets in on Psyche mission to asteroid

Psyche spacecraft
An artist’s conception shows NASA’s Psyche spacecraft at the asteroid Psyche. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU Illustration)

Seattle-based First Mode has been awarded a $1.8 million subcontract from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to build flight hardware for NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, which is due to conduct the first-ever up-close study of a metal-rich asteroid.

Under the terms of the firm, fixed-price contract, First Mode is to deliver a deployable aperture cover that will shield Psyche’s Deep Space Optical Communications system, or DSOC, from contamination and debris during launch. The contract calls for the hardware to be delivered in early 2021.

Psyche is set for launch in 2022, and after a years-long cruise that includes a Mars flyby in 2023, it’s scheduled to arrive at the asteroid Psyche in the main asteroid belt in early 2026.

This won’t be the first visit to an asteroid, but it will be the first visit to an asteroid that’s primarily made of nickel and iron rather than rubble, rock or ice. Scientists say the 140-mile-wide hunk of metal could be the exposed core of a protoplanet that was stripped of its rocky mantle early in the solar system’s history.

In addition to studying the asteroid Psyche, the spacecraft will test laser-based communications with Earth from deep space. The DSOC system’s aperture cover is designed to open early in the mission to kick off the technology demonstration.

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LaserMotive stealthily raises $1.5 million

LaserMotive executives
LaserMotive’s David Bashford and Tom Nugent monitor an experiment. (LaserMotive via YouTube)

LaserMotive, a stealthy pioneer in laser-based power transmission that’s based in Kent, Wash., has raised more than $1.5 million in an equity offering, according to documents filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Investments totaling $1,515,733 have been registered over the past year, according to the filing. The investors’ identities have not yet been made public, and LaserMotive did not immediately respond to GeekWire’s inquiries today.

The company’s co-founder, president and CEO, Tom Nugent, told GeekWire in a January email exchange that LaserMotive has “continued to be in stealth mode over the last couple of years, and we’re not ready to go into too many details yet on where we are.”

LaserMotive focuses on laser applications for transmitting power. In 2009, the company won a $900,000 NASA prize in a competition for laser-powered robot climbers. In 2012, it kept a drone flying for 48 hours straight during a beamed-power demonstration for Lockheed Martin. And in 2013, it unveiled a commercial product to transmit electrical power over fiber-optic cables.

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Coast Guard copter hit by laser flash

Image: Laser flash
Laser strikes on pilots have risen dramatically. (Coast Guard photo by Stephen Lehmann)

The U.S. Coast Guard says it had to cut a helicopter training mission short on Monday night after the airborne crew was targeted by someone with a laser near Port Angeles, Wash.

The laser was directed at the MH-65 Dolphin helicopter at around 6:30 p.m., forcing the crew to abort the flight and return to Air Station Port Angeles. “No injuries were reported, but all crew members are grounded until they are cleared by medical personnel, as laser strikes can cause permanent eye damage,” the Coast Guard said today in a statement.

The Coast Guard said it was working with local law-enforcement officials to investigate the incident.

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