Star Catcher, a Florida-based developer of orbital solar collection and transmission technologies, recently increased its total capital raised to $88 million after receiving $65 million in financing from a group of investors led by California-based B Capital. Comparatively speaking, this is a lot of money for space-based solar development, if rather modest by terrestrial standards.
At the same time, space is booming and may become a solar market driver. Industry watchers report that a record 4,500 objects were launched into space in 2025, with the majority of these by far being satellites powered by solar arrays. Launches continue to climb exponentially, increasing the in-orbit demand for energy. Ever-expanding requirements for communications, Earth observation, science, security and, perhaps inevitably, space-based data centers are all crowding the dance cards of launch companies.
Andrew Rush, co-founder and CEO of Star Catcher, told pv magazine USA that his company’s focus on delivering solar power to consumers in orbit is what distinguishes it from other burgeoning space-based power providers.
“The challenges that our energy grid faces in space are the same as on the planet, but squared,” Rush said. “Every satellite has its own generator. When it sees the sun, it runs off solar. When it doesn’t see the sun, it runs off batteries. In space we’re basically at the equivalent of water wheels to power mills in the pre-industrial era.”
Thus: every satellite a microgrid. But while microgrids may offer energy independence and efficiencies on Earth, in space they are inhibiting. A grid electrified by a utility-scale solar array and battery storage installation permits on-demand access to energy resources. When every isolated load is running solely off what it generates locally this limits its capabilities.
Star Catcher is working to build an energy infrastructure for low-Earth orbit (LEO), where the vast majority of satellites operate. These typically function in rapid day-night cycles as the Earth’s shadow blocks a direct line-of-sight to the sun for half the time in an orbit, ranging from about one-in-a-half to two hours. Payload devoted to batteries is payload not available for the satellite’s mission systems.
Star Catcher is proposing a constellation of solar collection and distribution stations that would orbit slightly higher than LEO – at about 1,000 miles – giving them longer access to sunlight. Fresnel lenses concentrate the sunlight on the station’s solar collectors. Energy is converted to wavelengths for efficient reception by existing satellite solar panels and transmitted via laser. The company says client satellites can receive up to 10 times their intrinsic power collection capabilities without retrofit or design modifications.
Rush describes the intended Star Catcher Network as power nodes, distributing energy to client satellites in lower orbits.
“We need to be able to field power plants to service low Earth orbit consistently with just one or two power nodes up. And then as we grow, as we generate revenue from providing services, we use that revenue to finance the build-out of the architecture.”
In 2025, Star Catcher completed a series of optical power beaming tests at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The team used multi-wavelength lasers to deliver more than 1.1 kW of electrical power to commercial solar panels, beating the most recent record of 800 W set by DARPA. Among the demonstrations, Star Catcher wirelessly transmitted energy to Intuitive Machines’ Lunar Terrain Vehicle at the facility and recharged its onboard batteries.
In April, the company completed an on-orbit demonstration of its spacecraft tracking and pointing capability aboard a testbed satellite operated by Loft Orbital. Incidentally, Loft Orbital was one of the first companies to sign a power purchase agreement with Star Catcher for when its space-based network goes live. The company is planning a space-based optical power beaming demonstration later this year, although it has not yet announced a launch provider or date.
According to Rush, the selection of the region just above LEO to place the first power nodes serves two main purposes. The first is that it is relatively easy to get to with existing launch services. (“There aren’t a lot of bus rides to higher orbits,” he said.) Second, it enables the power nodes to serve approaching client satellites (lower orbiting satellites are faster relative to the ground than higher ones) from a roughly sun-facing direction.
“In addition to not requiring client satellites to have a custom receiver because we transmit in compatible wavelengths, they also don’t have to change their orientation because we’re just like a second variable sun in the sky for them,” Rush said.
While some analysts note that space-based solar power is “having a moment” and attracting more investment, in part because of the revolution in economical launch services has made it plausible, most of the projects moving toward deployment focus on space collection and distribution to terrestrial users. Such projects run the gamut from LEO sources to supply solar arrays via laser to tremendous stations in geo-synchronous orbit sending power to Earth via microwave to vast receiver complexes.
Without throwing shade on space-to-ground energy transmission, Rush says Star Catcher has its eye set firmly on the growing number of potential off-takers for the energy it will collect in orbit. Notably, retired General John W. Raymond, a former chief of the U.S. Space Force, has joined Star Catcher’s board of directors, indicating where the company is looking for growth.
“Essentially every satellite in space today and every satellite in the near future could at some point get value from receiving energy from the Star Catcher Network,” Rush said. “Satellites, just like solar farms on the ground, degrade in power generation over time. What we offer is the ability to put more flux on those arrays and keep the satellites operating at beginning-of-life availability.”
Perhaps more importantly, future satellites may see less of their mass devoted to power collection and storage and have more room available to do the jobs they were put up there for. In this sense, space-based solar is akin to other envisioned windfalls from space exploration and exploitation, such as asteroid mining, in that a space-based economy rather than an Earth-centric one is where the benefits ultimately will be realized. Resources collected in space for use in space may end up being the most transformative.
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