Tapping Solar Power in Space

3D Print Application Engineer Emily Levin is one of 13,000 members of Women in 3D Printing and works to make the technology ready, not just for prototyping, but for production. 

Mechanical Engineering’s editorial team gathers for an annual look back at 2025’s top stories, ranging from rededicating the last U.S. coal-fired passenger locomotive in the U.S., to NASA’s Artemis mission, to unique tools engineered to be used in extreme conditions. 

The global additive manufacturing industry is currently valued somewhere around $30 billion, depending on which analyst you ask, but many projections expect that value to grow beyond $100 billion as soon as around 2030. But according to Women in 3D Printing, a global organization ... Show More

<p>Some solar mysteries, like the origin of the fast solar wind, can only be solved by getting up close and personal with the Sun. James Drake from the University of Maryland joins Planetary Radio this week to talk about the latest results from NASA's Parker Solar Probe as it soa ... Show More

It’s the highest-intensity solar power you can get. It’s available 24/7. And you can send it anywhere on earth. All you need to do is launch a ten-by-ten kilometer array of solar panels into geosynchronous orbit, capture solar energy, and beam it to earth using a massive antenna ... Show More

Modern life runs on wireless technology. What if the energy powering our devices could also be transmitted without wires? This week we are revisiting a talk by electrical engineer Ali Hajimiri, where he explains the principles behind wireless energy transfer and shares his far-ou ... Show More

Modern life runs on wireless technology. What if the energy powering our devices could also be transmitted without wires? Electrical engineer Ali Hajimiri explains the principles behind wireless energy transfer and shares his far-out vision for launching flexible solar panels int ... Show More

Stretching over roughly nine million square kilometers and with sands reaching temperatures of up to 80° Celsius, the Sahara Desert receives about 22 million terawatt hours of energy from the Sun every year. That's well over 100 times more energy than humanity consumes annually. ... Show More

The European Space Agency is exploring a unique way to dramatically cut carbon emissions by tapping sunlight closer to the source.