The beaming of solar power from space back down to earth using lasers sounds like science fiction, and was even floated in an Isaac Asimov short story back in the 1940s.

But that is exactly what a California-based startup is testing: Mini solar farms in the form of low-orbit satellites.

California-based startup Aetherflux plans to send its satellite technology into orbit on a SpaceX rocket next year. Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt is the company's CEO.

"We're going to do a constellation of satellites where each one transmits power with infrared lasers," said Bhatt. "And the benefits of this are, number one, you get to distribute the power generation across a lot of satellites, as opposed to one monolithic one, but also the spot that you're able to project onto the ground

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