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A billionaire entrepreneur of Indian origin has launched Silicon Valley startup Aetherflux to harvest solar power from space for remote parts of the globe. He plans to build a network of solar power stations in orbit to transmit energy to Earth.
Aetherflux, a space-based solar startup, was launched by Baiju Bhatt, the billionaire co-founder of stock trading juggernaut Robinhood on October 9. “What we’re doing at Aetherflux is a different approach of space solar power,” Bhatt said. “As we like to say, it is not your grandpa’s space solar power approach.”
“I’ve been passionate about space since childhood, inspired by my dad’s career as a scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center. As a kid, I remember reading Black Holes and Time Warps, talking physics with my dad on long drives, and imagining science fiction that could happen in the real world. All of this led me to Stanford, where I earned my Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Master’s in Mathematics. I thought I was going to be a physicist or mathematician, but as I left college in 2008, the financial crisis was in full swing and pulled me in,” Bhatt wrote in Medium, a publishing platform.
Bhatt exited Robinhood, left his CCO perch at the online brokerage valued at $23 billion, and announced his new venture, Aetherflux, which aims to beam solar power from space to remote regions where delivering power is expensive, challenging, or dangerous. Bhatt, who according to Forbes has a net worth of $1.7 billion, is self-funding Aetherflux. Recently, the billionaire also took part in a $6.5 million seed round for space-based solar startup Reflect Orbital, along with investors that included Sequoia Capital and Starship Venture.
The Stanford graduate told TechCrunch that he was always interested in space; along with his advanced STEM degrees, Bhatt’s father worked for NASA at Langley Air Force Base, all of which has led to his interest in space ventures. Aetherflux is working on its first mission now – sending up a demonstration spacecraft in late 2025 or early 2026. The spacecraft is being built by the satellite bus manufacturer Apex, a Los Angeles-based startup, where Bhatt is an investor.
“After college, my friend and I moved to New York City to start a finance company. The early years were challenging and our first companies didn’t gain traction. And then we got the idea for Robinhood. With a mission to democratize finance for all, the company we founded pioneered zero commission trading, helped millions of people access the capital markets, and today is publicly traded. I served as co-CEO until November 2020 and left my day-to-day role in March of this year to focus on the next episode: Aetherflux. Our mission is to commercialize space solar power. If we succeed, we unlock a renewable energy source for humanity that can be delivered virtually anywhere. Space solar power can revolutionize energy distribution, especially where delivering power is expensive, challenging, or dangerous. Powering hard-to-reach places like remote military bases, islands, or areas hit by disasters unlocks new capabilities and advantages for our country. Long term, we want to deliver renewable and affordable energy, day and night, to power commercial or civilian use cases. If this sounds audacious, it’s because it is,” Bhatt wrote on Medium
“The idea for space solar power can be traced back to 1941, in Isaac Asimov’s short story, “Reason”. The concept involves capturing the sun’s energy in space, converting it into electricity, and beaming it down for use on the ground. The sun is our greatest energy source, emitting more in an hour than Earth uses annually. In the 1970s, researchers turned to space solar power to harness this energy. Sunlight in space is more powerful than incident sunlight on Earth, and collection in space is largely unaffected by day-night cycles and weather. Traditional proposals called for billion-dollar, goliath structures in Geostationary orbit, using radio waves for power transmission and requiring massive footprints on the ground. The proposals never materialized,” he added.
Bhatt and his team are taking a different approach. “We’re building a constellation of small satellites in Low Earth Orbit, working together to transmit power to many small ground stations. Instead of transmitting power through microwaves, we’ll use infrared lasers, allowing for higher power output and smaller footprints on Earth. This isn’t your grandfather’s space solar power concept. Over the years, space technology has progressed rapidly. Launch costs are lower, lasers and optics are cheaper and more efficient, and constellation management is better understood. At the same time, global energy consumption continues to skyrocket and America continues to be energy dependent. Energy needs are growing even more with the adoption of AI, global conflicts, and the electrification of seemingly everything. Making space solar power a reality won’t be easy,” he said.
So far, Aetherflux’s foundational concept of space-based solar power remains theoretical but “as we make it a reality, that’s when the comparisons [to terrestrial solar power sources] are going to be a lot more real,” the billionaire CEO said.
