SpaceGrid: Unlocking the Potential of Cooperative Energy Management in Satellite Constellations

Traditional satellite power architectures, which rely exclusively on self-contained solar arrays and onboard energy storage, have become a critical bottleneck to the sustainable development of next-generation constellations for global broadband, real-time Earth observation, and distributed artificial intelligence (AI). As the large-scale deployment of low Earth orbit constellations accelerates, along with the rapid growth of the aerial economy and the convergence of high- and low-altitude platforms, the gap between energy supply and demand continues to widen, making insufficient power the dominant factor constraining satellite lifetime and mission performance. To address this challenge, this paper proposes SpaceGrid, a grid-inspired, constellation-scale space energy management architecture that treats power as a shared, routable network resource. SpaceGrid employs multi-hop wireless power transfer across orbital planes and heterogeneous satellite roles to decouple energy availability from orbital position and sunlight exposure. An AI-driven unified control plane integrates real-time energy telemetry with mission scheduling, enabling satellites to adapt functional roles dynamically according to operational demands and environmental conditions, while also supporting inter-constellation energy exchange to foster cooperation among different operators. Conceptual analysis and simulation results demonstrate that SpaceGrid significantly improves energy utilization, mission continuity, and network resilience, providing a viable pathway toward sustainable and cooperative multi-satellite systems in the 6G non-terrestrial network era.