China plans to build a space station to control storms

Mechanical engineering professor Duan Baoyan from Xidian University, the lead scientist of the Zhuri project, said the microwave beams generated by the station to transmit electricity to Earth were likely guided to heat moisture inside the storm. “If large enough, the energy can change the regional atmospheric circulation and change the intensity and path of the storm,” Duan wrote on People’s Daily this week.

Theo Interesting Engineeringwhich in theory allows scientists to tame storms or “steer” them away from damage-prone coastlines.

Duan added that the station can also charge satellites, space stations, and deep space probes, allowing them to operate longer and go farther. He commented: “Space Internet networks, even lunar bases in the future can rely on this ‘cosmic energy bank’ technology.”

The Zhuri project, or Pursuing the Sun, was first proposed by Duan and his colleagues in 2013, aiming to build a circular solar power plant with dimensions measured in kilometers in geostationary orbit, about 36,000 km from Earth, producing electricity at a GW scale.

In 2022, the project team will build a 75-meter-high test tower on the Xidian University campus to simulate the entire process on Earth, including tracking the Sun, focusing light and converting it into electricity, then continuing to convert electricity into microwaves, transmitting it long distances and then turning it back into electricity at the receiving antenna.

To date, the ground system has reached many new technical milestones, including “one-to-many transmission,” which allows a microwave transmitter to transmit energy to multiple mobile receivers at the same time instead of just one fixed target.

The project team plans to conduct large-scale orbital testing in 2030, aiming to generate at least one MW of electricity. However, Interesting Engineering assessed that to achieve this goal, they need to assemble a structure with a weight greater than the International Space Station (ISS) in orbit.