SWELL is sponsored by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition & Sustainment (OUSD (A&S)) Operational Energy Capability Improvement Fund (OECIF), with additional support from the Naval Center for Space Technology at NRL. “This is the first step towards addressing the challenges of implementing power beaming links for lunar exploration and other applications.” We’re ecstatic with its ongoing success in orbit,” said Chris DePuma, SWELL Program Manager. “Though small in scale, SWELL is a critical first step in the investigation of laser power beaming in space. To NRL’s knowledge, in addition to being the first laser power beaming demonstration in space, this also represents the highest power, longest distance, and most efficient power beaming demonstration in orbit of any type. The power beaming link distance is 1.45 meters.
SWELL has been providing nearly continuously about 1.5 watts at the power beaming receiver’s output with an end-to-end efficiency around 11%, more than ten times the team’s efficiency goal. Department of Defense Space Test Program (STP) H9 mission.
It resides on the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the U.S. Launched on March 14, 2023, this experiment represents the first successful instance of laser power beaming in space. Naval Research Laboratory’s (NRL) Space Wireless Energy Laser Link (SWELL) surpassed 100 days of successful on-orbit laser operations on June 29, 2023, coinciding with the NRL’s 100th birthday celebration.
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