Yank Technologies is a US based company that specialises in long-range, high-power wireless charging technology for the industrial and automotive sectors. Yank Technologies has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract by NASA. This contract is to develop wireless charging solutions for autonomous lunar vehicles, these solutions are expected to be able to supply kilowatts of power over multiple meters, much further than the inductive technologies being developed for EVs.
A contract like this is not only incredibly beneficial to a small business such as Yank Technologies, but it also highlights the question of just how beneficial wireless power could be in the space sector? Beaming kilowatts of power through the air is problematic on Earth, however, there will be no such safety concerns on the Moon. The benefits of long-distance wireless power and its ability to eliminate the need for large batteries and cables will be very useful in an industry where weight saving is critical as sending a payload into space costs thousands of dollars per kilogram. Space travel for both scientific and commercial purposes may well benefit from the implementation of wireless power and any weight-saving it enables, and technologies developed for the space sector frequently find their way into more terrestrial use cases. This contract may help Yank Technologies and its fellow wireless power start-ups attract the attention of industry giants such as Boeing, SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, Arianespace, and Blue Origin. SAR Insight covers the wireless power market across many applications including long-distance wireless power in its Wireless Power and Charging Technologies service.
The original article is here.
