Engineer Peter Glaser patented space solar power in 1973. For five decades it stayed theoretical; on April 27, 2026, Meta signed a 1-gigawatt capacity reservation with Virginia startup Overview Energy and became the first announced commercial buyer of orbital electricity.
Overview found a second customer ten days later. On May 6, the U.S. Air Force awarded it a study contract on space solar for remote bases. The contract names Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska and Anderson Air Force Base in Guam, where fuel supply chains become vulnerable in a conflict.
Why it matters
AI data centers need round-the-clock power on a scale the grid cannot easily provide; if space solar works, terrestrial solar farms can run 24/7 without new land or transmission lines.
First operational satellites against Meta's 1 GW reservation expected to begin launching.
Overview targets first orbital demo
Planned Milestone
First Overview satellite scheduled for low Earth orbit to demonstrate beaming power from space to a ground site.
Overview Energy wins U.S. Air Force study contract
Government Contract
The Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Energy and Environment awarded Overview a contract to study space solar power for remote military bases. The effort focuses on Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska and Anderson Air Force Base in Guam, where fuel supply chains strain in contested scenarios.
Meta signs space-solar capacity reservation
Power Procurement
Meta reserves up to 1 GW from Overview Energy, becoming the first announced commercial buyer of orbital solar power.
Meta reserves 1 GW of ultra-long-duration storage from Noon Energy
Power Procurement
Meta and Palo Alto startup Noon Energy announced a supply agreement for up to 1 GW / 100 GWh of 100+-hour energy storage using reversible solid-oxide fuel cells and carbon-based materials. A 25 MW / 2.5 GWh pilot is targeted for 2028. Meta's April 27 blog post grouped this deal with the Overview Energy space-solar agreement as part of the same AI power strategy.
Meta signs 6.6 GW in nuclear deals
Power Procurement
Agreements with Vistra, TerraPower, Oklo, and Constellation establish nuclear as Meta's primary AI baseload bet.
Overview Energy emerges from stealth
Announcement
Company publicly identifies itself and its near-infrared beaming approach after three years of quiet development.
Overview demonstrates high-power wireless transfer from moving aircraft
Demonstration
Overview Energy completed what it described as the world's first high-power wireless power transmission from any moving platform, beaming solar energy from an aircraft to solar panels more than 5,000 meters below — its highest-fidelity proof point before the planned January 2028 orbital test.
Aetherflux founded
Company Formation
Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt launches a rival pursuing laser-based power beaming from low Earth orbit.
Beam from orbit detected on Earth
Demonstration
Caltech researchers detect MAPLE's directed beam at a rooftop receiver in Pasadena, a field first.
Caltech beams power in space
Demonstration
MAPLE experiment aboard SSPD-1 becomes the first to transmit power wirelessly in orbit.
Overview Energy founded
Company Formation
Marc Berte and co-founders incorporate the Virginia startup that will sign the first commercial contract four years later.
Caltech receives $100M donation
Funding
Anonymous gift establishes the Space Solar Power Project, anchoring serious modern research on the concept.
First space-solar patent issued
Concept
Glaser receives the first US patent for a microwave-based method of transmitting power from orbit.
Glaser publishes the founding paper
Concept
NASA engineer Peter Glaser proposes orbital solar collectors beaming microwave power to Earth in a Science article.
Scenarios
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1
Overview hits 2028 demo, space solar becomes a real category
A successful demonstration validates the near-infrared approach and unlocks follow-on contracts from other hyperscalers and utilities. Meta exercises its full 1 GW reservation, terrestrial solar farm operators sign retrofit agreements to receive beams, and government counterparts in defense and emergency power begin parallel procurements. The 2030 commercial date holds within plus-or-minus a year.
Discussed by: Bloomberg, TechCrunch, PV Magazine
Consensus—
2
Beam efficiency falls short, Meta absorbs the option, leans on nuclear
The 2028 in-orbit demo reveals that real-world beam efficiency, atmospheric losses, or pointing accuracy degrade economics below grid-competitive levels. Meta walks away with reputational upside from having tried, the contract lapses, and the company's 6.6 GW of nuclear deals plus terrestrial renewables carry the AI buildout. Space solar reverts to a research category.
Discussed by: Energy analysts cited in Bloomberg and PV Magazine coverage
Consensus—
3
Aetherflux beats Overview to commercial scale
Aetherflux's smaller, faster, low-Earth-orbit laser architecture reaches first commercial delivery in 2027, a year ahead of Overview's demo, and the company wins the next round of hyperscaler contracts. Overview's geosynchronous-infrared bet either gets acquired, repositioned for utility-scale customers, or scaled back. The category survives, but with a different winner than Meta backed.
Discussed by: Payload Space, TechCrunch
Consensus—
4
Federal government claims a stake
An advisory bench heavy with former NASA administrators and a former FERC chair points to a deliberate strategy: Overview gets designated strategically important, picks up Department of Energy or Department of Defense contracts, and is brought under expanded export controls. Commercial timelines stretch as security review layers in, but funding and orbital slots become easier to secure.
Discussed by: Defense and energy policy analysts
Consensus—
5
Spectrum and orbital-slot fights delay everyone
Geosynchronous slots are scarce and the near-infrared beam will need international coordination on safety and aviation clearance. International regulators and competing satellite operators contest licenses, pushing first commercial delivery past 2030 for Overview and similar dates for rivals. Meta's reservation remains intact but the whole category slips by several years.
Discussed by: Spectrum and satellite-industry observers
NASA engineer Peter Glaser published a Science paper in 1968 proposing satellites that would harvest sunlight in geostationary orbit and beam it to five-mile-wide rectennas on Earth. He received the first patent for the concept in 1973. NASA and the Department of Energy spent tens of millions studying it through the late 1970s.
Outcome
Short Term
By the early 1980s, government studies concluded launch costs and large-aperture engineering made the concept uneconomic, and federal funding largely ended.
Long Term
The concept survived as a recurring academic and defense research thread for fifty years, periodically revived as launch costs fell, until private demonstrations and falling SpaceX-era launch prices made it commercially plausible again.
Why It's Relevant Today
Overview's deal is the first time Glaser's 58-year-old idea has had a paying corporate customer. The historical lesson is that the physics has never been the blocker — economics and launch cost were. Whether those conditions have actually changed enough is what the 2028 demo will test.
Caltech MAPLE in-orbit power beaming (2023)
January-May 2023
What Happened
Caltech's SSPD-1 demonstrator, funded by a $100 million private gift, used a flexible microwave transmitter array called MAPLE to wirelessly transmit power in orbit and direct a detectable beam to a rooftop receiver in Pasadena. The mission was led by professors Harry Atwater, Ali Hajimiri, and Sergio Pellegrino.
Outcome
Short Term
MAPLE provided the first in-space demonstration that beam steering and power transmission work outside controlled lab settings.
Long Term
The result removed the most fundamental technical-feasibility objection to space solar and gave commercial founders a credible reference point when raising venture funding and pitching customers like Meta.
Why It's Relevant Today
Without the 2023 Caltech demonstration, no hyperscaler would credibly sign a 1 GW reservation with a four-year-old startup. MAPLE is the proof point Overview's pitch leans on.
Microsoft's Three Mile Island restart deal (2024)
September 2024
What Happened
Microsoft signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy to restart the Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania, idle since 2019, exclusively to power its AI data centers. The deal made a major hyperscaler the anchor customer for reviving an entire dormant power-generation asset.
Outcome
Short Term
Other hyperscalers, including Meta, Google, and Amazon, followed within eighteen months with their own nuclear restarts, small modular reactor agreements, and now space-solar reservations.
Long Term
It established a template: AI compute demand is large enough that single tech buyers can underwrite first-of-a-kind or long-dormant energy infrastructure that utility-scale finance would not otherwise support.
Why It's Relevant Today
The Meta-Overview deal is the same template applied to a more speculative technology. A single AI buyer is large enough to underwrite a category that no utility customer would touch on its own.
