Balerion Principal Emerson Garnett sits down with Andrew Rush, Co-founder & CEO of Star Catcher, to discuss building the first power grid in space. Star Catcher is developing an orbital energy network that wirelessly transmits concentrated solar power to satellites using their existing solar arrays, with no retrofit required. Rush explains why power remains a core bottleneck in space operations, how Star Catcher’s optical power-beaming architecture works, and why abundant on-orbit energy could enable more capable satellites, orbital data centers, and future space infrastructure.
00:00 – Introduction to Andrew Rush, Star Catcher, and the company’s mission to build orbital power infrastructure.
00:22 – Rush reflects on his path from patent law to Made In Space, Redwire, and ultimately Star Catcher.
02:18 – High-level overview of Star Catcher and why the company is focused on solving power scarcity in orbit.
04:02 – How the Star Catcher network works, including power nodes, Fresnel lens collection, multi-wavelength lasers, and delivery to existing satellite solar arrays.
07:39 – Ground demonstrations of the technology, including tests at the Jacksonville Jaguars stadium and Cape Canaveral that exceeded the DARPA optical power transfer record.
09:22 – The most power-constrained customer segments today, including direct-to-cell operators, SAR companies, hosted payload providers, and compute-heavy spacecraft.
12:03 – How Star Catcher structures power purchase agreements and why terrestrial power-market models provide a useful template.
13:13 – Why orbital data centers are a natural customer segment and how external power beaming could make standard spacecraft buses support far higher loads.
15:55 – Market demand, signed letters of intent, and the scale of the potential power offtake opportunity.
19:01 – A key customer insight: most early users want higher concentrations of power while sunlit, not just backup during eclipse.
21:50 – Why existing solar arrays can absorb Star Catcher’s beams effectively, and how wavelength selection improves conversion while limiting thermal burden.
24:15 – Rush’s view that a strong commercial LEO economy must come before a true cislunar economy, and how orbital power infrastructure could serve as an enabling layer.
26:27 – The next major technical milestones, including in-space acquisition, tracking, and useful power transfer demonstrations.
29:42 – What scaling looks like from a single power node to a power band and eventually broad LEO coverage.
34:13 – Where the largest long-term demand may come from, with telecommunications first, then compute, data, manufacturing, and human activity in space.
36:36 – How Rush thinks about public-private partnership, responsible operations, and why orbital infrastructure companies must move in disciplined, commercial steps.
42:13 – What new mission classes become possible when power is no longer the dominant bottleneck, including longer-lived satellites, smaller solar arrays, and more dynamic spacecraft operations.
49:49 – Where Rush still sees white space in orbital infrastructure, especially in true in-space manufacturing applications rather than just the platforms that host them.
51:01 – Closing thoughts on Star Catcher’s hardware-rich, crawl-walk-run strategy and its ambition to make power infrastructure in space foundational to the next phase of the space economy.
