Sydney-based Extraterrestrial Power has developed a space-grade solar cell thin enough to be mass produced like terrestrial solar cells, which it estimates to be ten times more affordable than current space solar cells.

This Adelaide-headquartered federal government’s Australian Space Agency-backed technology has potential in an era of rapid satellite market growth, where space organisations are looking for new ways to optimise their missions with improved sustainability and lower costs.

Extraterrestrial Power has succeeded by thinning out space solar cells to a level where they can be mass-produced alongside terrestrial ones, while maintaining their space-grade efficiency and stability.

The main barrier preventing space solar cells being made via terrestrial production methods is the thickness, and until now, designing a thin cell that can survive the extremes of orbit like radiation, temperature fluctuations, and vacuum environments, was impossible.

Extraterrestrial Power Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder Peter Toth said the company aims to bring space-grade rigour to the mass-produced method normally used to make terrestrial solar cells, with support from the Australian Space Agency’s moon to mars supply chain program.

“We are primarily focusing on utilising the large investments in terrestrial solar for space and this has tremendous value for space,” Toth said.

“Importantly, we are only utilising technologies which allow high throughput manufacturing, which enables satellites being manufactured in high volumes necessary for low earth orbit (LEO) constellations.”

Extraterrestrial Power demonstrated its solar cells on board Caltech’s space-based solar power experiment in 2023, which made history by wirelessly transmitting power in space and beaming it down to Earth for the first time.

That was followed in 2024 by a demonstration flight on Waratah Seed, a ride-share satellite mission supported by the New South Wales government with a range of cutting-edge technologies on board.

Toth said the technology can come full circle to benefit the solar industry on Earth.

“Since thin solar cells use less materials, but we still need to maintain high efficiencies, they will have applications on Earth for lightweight usage initially – and wider uses later.”

Manufacturing solar cells remotely out in space is also a possibility, harnessing in-situ resources such as lunar regolith (Moon soil), which can melt down into different metals.

Cells manufactured in-situ could power rovers, robotic systems, and infrastructure for permanent human outposts in space and Extraterrestrial Power has already declared its ambition to become ‘the electricity provider of the solar system’.

“For humanity to move forward and become truly spacefaring, it needs an abundance of power in space and there is an abundance of sunshine in space,” Toth said.

“When founding Extraterrestrial Power, I long wanted to connect my passion for space and solar, which originally meant manufacturing solar panels on the Moon from local materials.”

Popular content

South Australian city installs rooftop solar arrays on seven public buildings

14 February 2025South Australian solar solutions company Venergy Solar has completed a multi-rooftop solar installation in eight weeks, in partnership with the City o...