Wantage Café Scientifique talk: Powering a sustainable future from space, with Sam Adlen

With 99.9% of the energy in the solar system in the sun, and organisations like SpaceX proposing the ability to launch 100GW/year of capacity within five years, interest in harnessing the sun’s energy in space is growing rapidly. This is both for space-based solar power where energy is transmitted wirelessly to the Earth from space and for orbital datacentres where compute is put in orbit and data transmitted to Earth. Sam will talk about the work of Space Solar in Harwell and how power from space can provide great options for a sustainable future on Earth. Sam is co-CEO of Space Solar, where they are developing the power layer in space, delivering continuous, affordable energy to markets on Earth and powering the next generation of businesses in space. Following a PhD working on a NASA Mars mission while in Oxford, Sam held senior space sector strategy roles in Leonardo, was Lead Technologist for Space at Innovate UK and has spent the last thirteen years living in Wantage and based at Harwell, latterly as Chief Strategy Officer at the Satellite Applications Catapult.