About the Lunar & Orbital Power Architect

Powering activity on the Moon and in cislunar space means choosing among surface solar, orbital arrays, and power beaming, then sizing the deployment. This architect models those options — capacity, mass, and the Starship flights to deliver them — so you can design a power system, not just guess at one.

It brings the generation, delivery, and logistics of space power into a single design view.

How to use it

1. Choose surface, orbital, or beamed power and set capacity targets.
2. Configure array mass and deployment assumptions.
3. Run the architect to read delivered power, mass, and flight count.
4. Compare architectures to see which delivers power most efficiently.

How it works

The tool sizes arrays for your target capacity, accounts for orbital versus surface losses, and converts mass into the number of heavy-lift flights required. Beaming options trade transmission losses for the flexibility of powering sites without local sun.

Because launch mass dominates cost, the architect highlights the mass-per-delivered-watt of each option — the figure that really decides how you power a lunar program.

Worked example

Comparing surface solar against an orbital array with beaming shows how each trades sunlight availability against mass and flights, making clear why a mixed architecture often wins for a growing lunar base.

Frequently asked questions

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