Beyond the Grid with Harry Yates: One Space Industry. Very Different Power Demands.

There may no longer be such a thing as a typical spacecraft power requirement.

Across the space industry, missions are evolving in radically different directions. Proliferated LEO constellations need hundreds or thousands of power systems that can be produced quickly, reliably and at increasingly competitive cost. At the other end of the spectrum, orbital computing, commercial space stations and other power-intensive missions are pushing individual platforms toward power levels that would have seemed extraordinary just a decade ago. And emerging architectures, from very low Earth orbit (VLEO) to precision optical platforms, are introducing entirely different structural and environmental demands.

For the companies designing and building spacecraft, that divergence is changing the power equation. Performance still matters, but so do manufacturing cadence, cost, mass, stowed volume, structural performance, modularity and the ability to tailor a system to increasingly specialized missions.

Harry Yates has watched that transformation unfold across three decades in the space industry. Now Director of Business Development for space power products at Redwire, Yates has worked across solar-array engineering, product development and major spacecraft programs, including the Roll-Out Solar Array (ROSA), NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Lunar Gateway, as well as commercial LEO constellation programs.

What he sees now is not simply an industry asking for more power. It is an industry asking power systems to do very different things, and at very different scales. 

In this edition of Beyond the Grid, Yates discusses the forces reshaping spacecraft power, from the industrialization of constellation manufacturing to the rise of extremely high-power missions. He also explores why the next generation of power systems will need to become more adaptable as spacecraft themselves become more diverse, and why the future may belong not to a single dominant approach, but to different families of power technologies optimized for very different missions.

The evolution offers a revealing glimpse into the space economy taking shape. As spacecraft become more numerous, more capable and more specialized, the way we power them may tell us just as much about where the industry is headed as the missions themselves.

You’ve spent your career watching spacecraft power evolve. What’s the biggest shift you’re seeing in what customers are asking for today versus even five years ago?

One of the biggest shifts I’ve seen is how fast customer expectations have moved. A few years back, we received feedback from a constellation customer stating: “If you can’t deliver at the cost point and cadence I need, it doesn’t matter how good the hardware is.” That stuck with me, because it reflected a broader change across the industry. Constellation operators want lower cost and rapid delivery, and they want both at scale. 

At the same time, we are getting requests for the exact opposite end of the spectrum: very large power systems for things like orbital data centers or commercial stations. I still think back to a meeting where a customer casually mentioned needing a hundred kilowatts, and it. sounded almost futuristic. Now, it’s becoming routine. These two variables—high-rate production and ultrahigh power—are putting real pressure on the photovoltaic supply chain, and you can feel that shift everywhere.

Redwire has introduced technologies like the Extensible Low-Profile Solar Array (ELSA) and the Roll-Out Solar Array (ROSA). What’s driving the need for different approaches to spacecraft power, and what kinds of missions are these technologies designed to enable? 

A lot of this demand comes from customers wanting more capability without paying a penalty in mass or volume. ELSA came out of conversations with constellation operators who needed a reliable, low-cost array that could also be built quickly. It was clear they wanted something like ROSA, with simple deployment and large surface area, but also optimized for high-rate production. ELSA is that accessible version built with manufacturability in mind.

ROSA, meanwhile, is the system requested by customers that are planning more ambitious missions. For example, I was talking with a team working on orbital computing, and the power levels they needed for their mission would have been nearly impossible to attain 10 years ago. ROSA opens the door to those kinds of missions—big Earth-observation platforms, long-duration commercial destinations, anywhere you need serious power without huge mass.

Space missions keep getting more ambitious. What challenges are emerging in spacecraft power systems as requirements continue to grow?

One thing that comes up often is that spacecraft are simply asking for more power than legacy designs were built for. Recently, a customer shared their power budget with us, and my first reaction was, “this used to be a whole constellation.” Now it’s just the payload.

When power levels go up, everything else must adjust—array size, structural stiffness, manufacturing throughput, even how you integrate the wings onto the bus. We’re seeing power become a real driver of mission architecture. It’s no longer a quiet subsystem in the background; it’s one of the first things people think about when scoping new platforms.

Commercial space is moving incredibly fast. What will the next generation of spacecraft require from their power systems that today’s platforms weren’t designed for?

Across business development conversations, you can see spacecraft designs splitting in multiple directions: proliferated low Earth orbit systems that need hundreds of repeatable units, precision optical platforms that require very stiff deployed structures, and emerging VLEO missions that have completely different environmental demands. One customer working in VLEO joked that “drag is our real payload,” and that captures how different those platforms are.

To support these newest mission applications, power systems have to be modular and reconfigurable in ways older arrays were not. Commercial customers will keep pushing for speed and affordability, while the high-end missions will need tailored performance—larger areas, lighter structures, and more stiffness. I think we’ll end up with two families of products: streamlined, commoditized arrays for volume production, and premium systems designed for platforms that need precision or operate in tougher environments.