Wireless Energy Transfer for Space Applications: A Review of Technologies, Mission Architectures, Energy Routing, and System Integration
Abstract
Wireless energy transfer (WET) decouples energy generation from energy use, offering strategic advantages for distributed spacecraft, lunar surface networks, mobile assets, and high-power remote loads. This review organizes the field along four axes: physical mechanism, energy reference plane, mission architecture, and evidence maturity. It examines near field inductive and resonant transfer, microwave and millimeter wave power beaming, optical and laser-based transfer, space-based solar power, lunar and cislunar energy delivery, inter-spacecraft power sharing, intraspacecraft contactless interfaces, and reconfigurable or relay assisted routing within a common R0,R7 energy-accounting framework. Three conclusions emerge. First, WET is most valuable when spatial or temporal mismatches separate energy generation from load demand; it does not universally replace local generation or onboard storage. Second, dominant losses vary across system architectures. Beam collection, rectification, receiver output, and useful load efficiencies are therefore not directly comparable without explicitly defined energy reference planes. Third, technological maturity is uneven. High power ground demonstrations and short range flight applications are relatively well established, whereas long-range radiative inter spacecraft transfer, spaceborne routing hardware, lunar energy networks, and deep space applications remain supported primarily by models, simulations, and mission studies rather than hardware demonstrations. Progress requires validated end to end energy budgets under mission realistic constraints, including pointing and tracking, thermal management, environmental exposure, reliability, energy storage, and regulatory compliance.
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BibTeX
@misc{lin2026wireless,
title = {{Wireless Energy Transfer for Space Applications: A Review of Technologies, Mission Architectures, Energy Routing, and System Integration}},
author = {Lyuye Lin and Zhifu Feng and Ermanno Miele and Quanbo Ge and Manuel Iori and Chunbo Liu and Kwok-Tong Chau and Denis Garoli and Remo Proietti Zaccaria},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.16960},
eprint = {2610.16960},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.16960},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Wireless Energy Transfer for Space Applications: A Review of Technologies, Mission Architectures, Energy Routing, and System Integration
AU - Lyuye Lin
AU - Zhifu Feng
AU - Ermanno Miele
AU - Quanbo Ge
AU - Manuel Iori
AU - Chunbo Liu
AU - Kwok-Tong Chau
AU - Denis Garoli
AU - Remo Proietti Zaccaria
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/12
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.16960
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.16960
AB - Wireless energy transfer (WET) decouples energy generation from energy use, offering strategic advantages for distributed spacecraft, lunar surface networks, mobile assets, and high-power remote loads. This review organizes the field along four axes: physical mechanism, energy reference plane, mission architecture, and evidence maturity. It examines near field inductive and resonant transfer, microwave and millimeter wave power beaming, optical and laser-based transfer, space-based solar power, lunar and cislunar energy delivery, inter-spacecraft power sharing, intraspacecraft contactless interfaces, and reconfigurable or relay assisted routing within a common R0,R7 energy-accounting framework. Three conclusions emerge. First, WET is most valuable when spatial or temporal mismatches separate energy generation from load demand; it does not universally replace local generation or onboard storage. Second, dominant losses vary across system architectures. Beam collection, rectification, receiver output, and useful load efficiencies are therefore not directly comparable without explicitly defined energy reference planes. Third, technological maturity is uneven. High power ground demonstrations and short range flight applications are relatively well established, whereas long-range radiative inter spacecraft transfer, spaceborne routing hardware, lunar energy networks, and deep space applications remain supported primarily by models, simulations, and mission studies rather than hardware demonstrations. Progress requires validated end to end energy budgets under mission realistic constraints, including pointing and tracking, thermal management, environmental exposure, reliability, energy storage, and regulatory compliance.
ER -