While at first seeming unconnected, the emerging space industry is an important part of climate tech. Not only will space-based technologies help companies solve climate problems of Earth, but the technologies being developed for both manned and unmanned spaceflight can help pave the way for pro-climate products.
Space is an environment of extremes. The distances and velocities are mind-boggling, the conditions push against the limits of our scientific knowledge and engineering know-how. It is at once colder than any terrestrial conditions, but overheating is one of the main dangers faced by people and equipment. Then there’s the hard radiation, the flow of charged particles from the Sun, debris and the fact that just putting anything in orbit involves igniting a gigantic tube full of highly volatile chemicals and riding the blast.
Space-based technology is crucial to fighting climate change. Orbiting satellites are used to monitor sea level rise, distant but sensitive areas like the North Pacific Garbage Patch, atmospheric conditions, forest fires, floods and forms of pollution. Satellites can also monitor things that are a bit more abstract, like the Earth’s albedo, which determines how much solar energy is being reflected away from the planet, which has important implications for climate (the planet’s albedo is one of the reasons why both global warming and cooling can runaway – snow and polar ice are main components of it, so warming that melts the ice and snow reduces the albedo, strengthening the warming trend and vice versa). Other satellites track ecosystem health, ocean currents, reservoir levels, river flows, soil moisture and the ozone layer.
But satellites also have more important roles in climate tech. In today’s data-driven world, raw data collected from space is essential to identifying opportunities and trends in the climate.
They’re being used to create “heat maps” of locations that get the most sunlight, for more efficient solar power installations, especially on a residential scale where a few trees in one’s yard or the or the orientation of a roofline can make a big difference in how much power rooftop panels can generate, which determines if the installation in financially viable. Similarly, technology developed for measuring wind speeds from space has been adapted to help plan wind turbine installations. Sensors developed to measuring oxygen levels precisely during re-entry have been repurposed to control combustion in power plants and factories, allowing for my precise control, which improves efficiency and reduces waste gases.
At a consumer level, companies are using GPS data to help drivers save fuel and a group of entrepreneurs has used satellite data to build a smartphone app that tracks carbon footprints in real time.
But the demands of space on people and equipment may have other benefits for the climate. For instance, the limited electricity supply available for satellites and spacecraft or stations, coupled with the need to thermally regulate the craft, could lead to innovations in refrigeration or air conditioning technology, leading to more energy efficient units, or ones that don’t need toxic chemicals. Similarly, spacecraft with human crew need a way to remove carbon dioxide from the air supply. Currently this is done chemically, commonly lithium hydroxide or soda lime. It’s possible research into carbon dioxide scrubbing could help with carbon sequestration or help remove carbon and other gases from exhaust before it’s released into the atmosphere.
While many satellites use photovoltaics for power, the space-based solar cells aren’t a major driver of improvements in terrestrial units, since the solar power market is big enough that research and development no longer needs to be driven by cutting edge science. However, spacecraft, especially ones on journeys to the outer solar system or long-term probes of the Moon (which experiences two weeks of sunlight and two weeks of darkness) need reliable, low mass and energy dense batteries that can survive harsh conditions and produce little additional waste heat. This is often done with betavoltaics, which are radioactive elements undergoing beta decay, releasing electons into an electrode to power spacecraft electronics. However, they have drawbacks, mainly being very low power, which can be a problem for more advanced electronics with higher power demands, as well as having a low efficiency. Some craft use chemical batteries recharged by solar panels, but these tend to be very expensive, or require special modifications to make them work in space conditions.
But the big implication batteries in space has for those on Earth is that they must be capable of discharging and recharging time and time again for years when electric vehicles only a few years old need their batteries replaced. Improving this technology so it can be affordably produced for terrestrial markets would be a huge improvement – not only for vehicles, but for residential solar power stations, replacing gas or diesel generators, or helping the grid deal with intermittent renewable energy supplies or peak demand.
The space industry may be devoted to getting off this planet, but its advancements are also helping to save it.