Researcher Who Beamed Solar Power From Space Brings Vision to Pasadena Forum

Three years ago, a Caltech physicist stood on a campus rooftop and detected energy transmitted from a satellite 300 miles above. On May 30, Harry Atwater will walk into the building next door and explain what comes next.

Atwater, the Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science at Caltech, is the keynote speaker at “Space-based Abundance,” a forum exploring commercial opportunities in space-based energy, data, and health technologies. The event, hosted by the Caltech Entrepreneurs Forum at the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, pairs Caltech’s research with Pasadena-based entrepreneurs building companies from that research and investors funding the emerging space economy.

As a principal investigator on Caltech’s Space Solar Power Project — alongside co-directors Ali Hajimiri and Sergio Pellegrino — Atwater helped lead a team that in 2023 launched a demonstrator satellite and accomplished what researchers had theorized for decades: wirelessly transmitting solar energy collected in orbit. “Demonstration of wireless power transfer in space using lightweight structures is an important step toward space solar power and broad access to it globally,” Atwater said when the milestone was announced.

The technology remains years from commercial deployment. Caltech President Thomas F. Rosenbaum described it upon the demonstrator mission’s completion in January 2024 as “still a future prospect,” while adding that “this critical mission demonstrated that it should be an achievable future.” The project has received more than $100 million in philanthropic support from Donald and Brigitte Bren, with an additional $12.5 million from Northrop Grumman Corporation through a sponsored research agreement that aided early technology development.

Two other speakers ground the forum in the commercial side of the space economy — and in Pasadena.

Leon Alkalai, a retired Technical Fellow of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who spent 32 years at the institution, founded Mandala Space Ventures in 2021 as a Pasadena-based incubator for space startups. Alkalai received Distinguished Individual Achievement medals from NASA for his leadership roles on the GRAIL mission to the Moon and the INSIGHT lander on Mars. Mandala’s portfolio company Sophia Space, also headquartered in Pasadena, raised a $10 million seed round in 2026 to develop orbital edge computing and data center technology derived from Caltech and JPL research. “At Mandala, we incubate, we accelerate and we invest in space startup companies that are essential to the future of the emerging space industry,” Alkalai said in a statement announcing Sophia Space.

Jordan Noone, the founding chief technology officer of Relativity Space, the company that pioneered 3D-printed orbital rockets, rounds out the speaker lineup. Noone co-founded Embedded Ventures in 2020, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in dual-use space and defense startups. The firm signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the U.S. Space Force in 2021 and announced a $100 million fund in 2023 to support startups advancing technologies for both civilian and military purposes, according to published reports.

The event producers are Goran Matijasevic, executive director of the UC Irvine Chief Executive Roundtable, and Dan Wu, a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig, LLP, whose practice focuses on space and defense companies.

The Caltech Entrepreneurs Forum, founded in 1984 as a resource of Caltech’s Office of Technology Transfer and Corporate Partnerships, connects technology ventures with researchers, investors, and industry leaders across Southern California.

“Space-based Abundance” takes place Saturday, May 30 at the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, 1216 E. California Blvd., Pasadena. The program begins at 10 a.m.; coffee and networking start at 9 a.m. General admission is $30 in advance and $40 at the door. Caltech students attend free with a current ID. Free underground parking is available. Registration is at luma.com/i26km4l0. For general inquiries, email infoentforum@caltech.edu.

Atwater, who also directs Caltech’s Liquid Sunlight Alliance, has said that what makes space solar power distinct from its terrestrial counterpart is its constancy. “The thing that’s really transformative about space solar power,” he said, “is that, unlike solar power on Earth, it has potential to eliminate the need for storage.”

The satellite is gone — it stopped transmitting in November 2023 and will eventually burn up in the atmosphere. The research, and the ventures it has spawned in Pasadena, continues.