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It’s the stuff of science fiction: Solar panels in space that beam power directly to Earth equipping the planet with clean renewable and affordable energy. Yet, it could soon be reality.

Caltech has just received $100 million in funding for their Space Solar Power Project (SSPP). The project is described by Caltech as: “Collecting solar power in space and transmitting the energy wirelessly to Earth through microwaves enables terrestrial power availability unaffected by weather or time of day. Solar power could be continuously available anywhere on earth.”

“This ambitious project is a transformative approach to large-scale solar energy harvesting for the Earth that overcomes this intermittency and the need for energy storage,” said SSPP researcher Harry Atwater in the Caltech press release on the matter.

We’re heading northwest for the 11th flight of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which will happen no earlier than Wednesday night, Aug. 4. The mission profile is designed to stay ahead of the rover – supporting its future science goals in the “South Séítah” region, where it will be able to gather aerial imagery in support of future Perseverance Mars rover surface operations in the area.

Here is how we plan to do it: On whatever day the flight takes place, we will start at 12:30 p.m. local Mars time (on Aug. 4, this would be 9:47 p.m. PDT/Aug. 5, 12:47 a.m. EDT). Ingenuity wakes up from its slumber and begins a pre-programmed series of preflight checks. Three minutes later, we’re off – literally – climbing to a height of 39 feet (12 meters), then heading downrange at a speed of 11 mph (5 meters per second).

And while Flight 11 is primarily intended as a transfer flight – moving the helicopter from one place to the other — we’re not letting the opportunity go to waste to take a few images along the way. Ingenuity’s color camera will take multiple photos en route, and then at the end of the flight, near our new airfield, we’ll take two images to make a 3D stereo pair. Flight 11 – from takeoff to landing –- should take about 130 seconds.

As the United States looks beyond war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military is preparing for conflict in new domains, from outer space to cyberspace.
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Engineers usually regard heat as “waste energy” since it is hard to efficiently turn into anything useful. However, a new class of thermoelectric materials could change that after researchers opted to try the exact opposite of the usual approach. A paper in Science Advances explains why, speeding the search for even better versions.

As the name suggests, thermoelectric materials turn heat into electricity, skipping the boiling water stage used in most bulk electricity production. However, cost and inefficiency have kept thermoelectric generators restricted to niche applications, such as powering spacecraft like the Mars Perseverance rover where lightweight, reliable energy production matters more than price.

Thermoelectric materials are too expensive and polluting for more widespread use, but new versions that replace heavier elements with magnesium could change that, opening the door to even better options that could find widespread uses.