1. United States
2. S.C.
3. Letter

Subject: Proposal for a U.S. Space-Based Solar Power Demonstration Japan is scheduled to launch the OHISAMA satellite in fiscal year 2026. It is a small demonstration satellite (approximately 180 kg) that will generate about 1 kilowatt of power in low-Earth orbit and beam it to Earth using microwaves. This is the first attempt to prove the full chain: sunlight → electricity → microwave transmission → usable power on the ground. A comparable U.S. demonstration satellite would cost roughly $10–50 million to design, build, and launch. This is a fraction of Japan’s long-term plan, which envisions full-scale stations (roughly 1 gigawatt each) at a cost of tens of billions per station. The White House complex currently uses an estimated 2,400 megawatt-hours of electricity per year at a cost of roughly $200,000–$400,000 annually. Roof-mounted solar can cover only about 6% of that load. A space-based demonstration would not power the White House, but it would place the United States in the same technological race Japan is already running and prove the concept for future energy security applications. I request that Congress direct the Department of Energy and NASA to study and fund a small-scale space solar power demonstration modeled on Japan’s OHISAMA project.