It's science fiction-a dream for decades: gigawatts of free, clean power, anywhere on Earth, night and day, delivered by satellites that collect and beam down solar energy directly from orbit. A new startup, breaking cover Wednesday, says it is developing a proprietary design for space-based solar and thus unlocking this source of energy for the first time.

"What we're doing at Aetherflux is a different approach of space solar power," said Aetherflux founder Baiju Bhatt in a recent interview. "As we like to say, it is not your grandpa's space solar power approach."

An idea for space-based solar has been studied for years, but Aetherflux approaches things a bit differently-in number, orbit, and size. Previous concepts have largely centered on the deployment of ultra-expensive, enormous spacecraft to geostationary orbit where it could collect sunshine nearly all the time and beam it down to a fixed point on Earth. Aetherflux plans to construct a mega-constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit, each with a solar array, a battery, and near-optical infrared laser to beam down the power to the ground. The satellites, though at an altitude that may not expose them to the sun full time, and each solar array is so that it will collect a low amount of power, the startup puts up thousands of these to accumulate massive amounts of energy. Bhatt started the startup late last year, moving in full-time after quitting his senior position at financial trading platform Robinhood, which he also co-founded.

A pivot to the space industry isn't so left-field for Bhatt, though-as much as he has been fascinated by space for so long as he can remember. His father worked for NASA at Langley Air Force Base, and he holds advanced degrees in physics and math at Stanford. The commercialization of space over the last decade has opened up new opportunities, he said. "The thing that's always been my interest is, how do you bring more capitalism to space? "

Certainly one way to do that is by harnessing space-based solar. If the company can pull it off, the market could be enormous. But first Aetherflux has to prove that it works at all. The company is now working toward its first mission, to send up a demonstration spacecraft in the fourth quarter of 2025 or the first quarter of 2026. That spacecraft, being built by satellite bus manufacturer Apex, will aim to test transmission of solar energy via the infrared laser; if it succeeds, it will break a distance record for how far power can be transferred, Bhatt said. Bhatt acknowledged that space-based solar is still purely theoretical to this point, but "let's give this technical solution a couple of industrialization revs, and I think the comparison [to terrestrial solar] will be a little bit more even-keeled," he said.

Aetherflux's constellation will need to be highly efficient at converting solar power in order to take into account the natural drop in power which would occur as the energy is transmitted to the solar panels and then to the ground. The "stretch goal," Bhatt said, is eventually to have each satellite sending back enough energy to Earth to power a small neighborhood.

Bhatt, whose fortune is pegged by Forbes at more than $1.7 billion, has invested "millions" of his own money in Aetherflux and will invest through the first demonstration mission, a spokesperson said.