From Powering Spacecraft To Showing Off Its Manufacturing Might, Ascent Solar Is Making Its Name In Spacetech
DETROIT, MICHIGAN - May 1, 2025 ( NEWMEDIAWIRE ) - Ascent Solar Technologies (NASDAQ: ASTI), the maker of featherweight, flexible and durable CIGS thin-film photovoltaic (PV) solutions that have the potential to power everything from spacecraft to satellites in space, was busy at the 40th annual Space Symposium held earlier in April. The company met with space industry executives, potential customers and partners and showed off its cutting-edge 5MW production facility at its nearby headquarters via guided tours.
It's not surprising that Ascent was flexing its prowess at the premier conference for the space industry. Its PV cells weigh little, are flexible and bendable and perform well in the dark, which is ideal for space settings. It's the reason it already counts NASA, DARPA and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as partners and recently announced the delivery of spaceflight-ready PV blankets to a leading European space systems provider, enabling what the company says is an innovative new capability for making spacecraft lighter and more powerful.
The company's PV technology enables energy beamed from satellites or orbital vehicles to be captured by these thin, flexible PV panels that can be affixed to spacecraft or other vehicles via microwave or laser beam. Once captured in the CIGS PV modules, the spacecraft and orbital vehicles will be able to go further, for longer periods of time. Those benefits are also why Ascent received an additional order from one of the multiple third parties evaluating technologies for receiving beamed power. Ascent had designed, prototyped and delivered an initial beamed-power optimized module to multiple third parties for testing and evaluation in under a month. This customer requested revisions and Ascent is now fine-tuning module design modifications.
'As interest grows for power beaming and space-based solar power, our thin-film PV technology will stand out as a clear solution for maximizing efficiency while mitigating the risks around solar solutions in space,' said Paul Warley, CEO of Ascent. 'As we continue to fine-tune our technology to meet each of our customers' unique needs, we expect to experience increased demand and revenue opportunities.'
Ascent's Technology On Display
The Space Symposium unites global space professionals from commercial, civil and defense markets to connect and explore critical space issues. Julian Miller, director of space solutions at Ascent Solar, spent his time during in-person meetings at the symposium discussing hardware developer kit partnership opportunities, providing insight for trade studies for prospective missions and spacecraft. He also explained how Ascent's technology can be used for drop-in replacements and is backward compatible with existing capabilities.
Ascent's hardware developer kit program is aimed at making it easier for space mission managers and spacecraft engineers to unlock both savings and increased performance with Plug & Fly(TM) solar array hardware assemblies. Miller also highlighted the performance and benefits of Ascent's thin-film PV in orbital and planetary surface environments.
During tours of the company's 5MW manufacturing facility – located at Ascent's headquarters – potential customers and partners got a peek into a manufacturing facility that will be able to ship orders in excess of 100kW this summer. Ascent says its spaceflight-proven, high-TRL solar array products allow for rapid customization and short delivery timelines, thanks to its 5MW production facility and refined manufacturing processes. The focus didn't end there. Ascent also spent time during the symposium and guided tours discussing how its CIGS PV products can be leveraged for new applications in space, such as orbital manufacturing.
'Our team is actively working to establish standard combined offerings to make a greater depth of test data available for prospective space industry buyers evaluating how to best interface and integrate lighter-weight, lower-mass solar arrays,' said Miller. 'As we continue to hold discussions with industry-leading providers of solar array structures and deployable mechanisms that enable satellites and other spacecraft to utilize our efficient thin-film PV products, we welcomed new entities to connect with us and take a tour of our facilities.'
Tariffs A Boon To Business
Beyond making connections at the symposium that could translate into new customers, Ascent reports it is benefiting from the global tariffs instituted by the Trump Administration. The company says the tariffs have resulted in an influx of prospective contract manufacturing and thin-film PV product design/development opportunities for investing in U.S. domestic manufacturing capability, and it is currently exploring ways to support the surge of new interest in Ascent's manufacturing prowess.
'Fabless production arrangements under consideration could enable providers to more quickly and capitally efficiently serve U.S. market demand with breakthrough new power generation products via the utilization of ASTI's vertically integrated facility and specialized machinery,' reports the company.
Space Market Taking Off
It's not surprising that Ascent is focused on powering the space industry of tomorrow. The solar space market is projected to reach $6.8 billion by 2040, growing from an estimated $4.7 billion in 2030. Demand for sustainable energy and technological advancements are driving the growth.
The company is engaged with multiple strategic partners in the space market and says it expects to secure long-term agreements that will bring consistent annual revenue from a diverse set of customers in the space market.
'Our latest solar efficiency milestones are opening new revenue streams driven by the increasing demand to power space vehicles and beam solar energy,' says Warley. 'Ascent products – all produced domestically in our facility in Thornton, CO – are uniquely poised to reliably meet that demand in the harsh environment of space, reducing costs and increasing operational efficiency for customers in the public, private and government sectors.'
Featured image bySpaceXonUnsplash.
This post contains sponsored content. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice.
This content was originallypublished on Benzinga.Read further disclosureshere.
View the original release on www.newmediawire.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Applovin shares fall despite better-than-expected Q2 results, guidance
– AppLovin Corporation reported Wednesday upbeat guidance for the current quarter as Q2 results topped estimates. Applovin Corp (NASDAQ:APP) fell more than 7% in afterhours trading following the report. For the three months ended June 30, 2025, AppLovin reported earnings per share of $2.39 on revenue of $1.26 billion, compared with Wall Street estimates for EPS of $2.01 on revenue of $1.22 billion. For Q3, AppLovin guided revenue to a range of $1.320B to $1.340B, above consensus analyst estimates around $1.31B Related articles Applovin shares fall despite better-than-expected Q2 results, guidance Surge of 50% since our AI selection, this chip giant still has great potential Apollo economist warns: AI bubble now bigger than 1990s tech mania
Yahoo
6 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trading Day: Wall St momentum calms tariff shakes
By Jamie McGeever ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) -TRADING DAY Making sense of the forces driving global markets By Jamie McGeever, Markets Columnist Wall Street rallied on Wednesday as investors continued to take their cue from earnings and AI-related optimism over tariffs, while a weak 10-year Treasury note auction served as a reminder of the precarious U.S. fiscal situation. More on that below. In my column today I look at how investors' apparent readiness to accept tariffs challenges the orthodoxies that have underpinned economic liberalism and world markets for the past 40 years. If you have more time to read, here are a few articles I recommend to help you make sense of what happened in markets today. 1. Trump imposes additional 25% tariff on Indian goods,relations hit new low 2. India-U.S. spat over trade and oil threatens widerfallout 3. Lula rejects 'humiliation' of calling Trump overU.S.-Brazil tariff 4. Biden-era appointees could stymie Trump's effort toreshape Fed 5. Bank of England's long unwinding road: Mike Dolan Today's Key Market Moves * FX: Dollar index falls 0.5%, its fourth straightdecline. Brazil's real rises 0.8% to a one-month high of 5.45/$. * STOCKS: Nasdaq climbs 1.2%, the best performing majorindex on Wall St. * SHARES/SECTORS: U.S. consumer discretionary index +2.5%,consumer staples index +1.8%. Apple +5%, Super Micro Computer-18%. * BONDS: A weak 10-year Treasury auction pusheslonger-dated yields up as much as 5 bps, steepening the curve. * COMMODITIES: Oil falls for a fifth day, hits newfive-week lows after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubiosuggests there may be an announcement on potential sanctionsagainst Russia. Wall St momentum calms tariff shakes Positive investor sentiment and risk appetite were on full display on Wednesday, as optimism around corporate earnings and the U.S. tech boom again overshadowed more worrisome global developments on tariffs and growth. Traders cheered news that ChatGPT maker OpenAI is mulling a stock sale that could value the company at $500 billion and Apple's pledge to spend $100 billion on U.S. manufacturing. U.S. earnings continue to surprise to the upside too, and the S&P 500 consumer discretionary index rose 2.4%, its best day since May. Wall Street stood in contrast to a more subdued global session. Benchmark Asian, emerging and European indices were all flat on Wednesday, with the Trump administration's tariffs weighing on sentiment across the board. The major exception was China, where blue chip stocks closed at their highest in more than three and a half years on hopes that the United States and China will strike a trade deal in the coming days. Trade-related optimism elsewhere, however, is in much shorter supply. U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday slapped further import duties on India, bringing the total tariff rate to 50%, while Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told Reuters that relations with the U.S. are at a 200-year low. Some Fed officials, meanwhile, are signaling growing unease about the U.S. labor market and economy. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly on Wednesday said interest rates should probably be lowered in the coming months. In bonds, a weak $42 billion sale of 10-year U.S. government bonds drew the weakest demand in a year, and followed a somewhat disappointing auction of $58 billion three-year notes the day before. Thursday's $25 billion sale of 30-year bonds will come under even greater scrutiny. Also on Thursday, the Bank of England is widely expected to cut its key interest rate to 4% from 4.25%. But the challenges facing the Bank are significant - the fiscal outlook appears to be deteriorating sharply, and inflation is close to double the central bank's 2% target. Before that China announces July trade data, with economists expecting export growth to slow and the surplus to narrow. Earlier this week, official U.S. figures showed that the U.S. trade gap with China in June shrank to its lowest in more than 21 years. Markets' tariff resilience challenges long-standing economic orthodoxy Investors have been living in a real-time economic experiment ever since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January. Whether it's tariffs, "America First" isolationism, overt politicization of independent economic institutions, or upended global economic norms, markets are having to deal with challenges few investors have faced before. So how are they reacting to the leader of the free world ripping up the economic playbook that has shaped the global financial system for 40 years? Wall Street and world stocks are at record highs, U.S. high yield corporate bond spreads are the tightest since before the 2007-08 global financial crisis, and Treasuries are remarkably calm, with the 10-year yield below its average of the last two years. It's not all serene, of course. The U.S. "term premium" - a measure of the extra compensation investors demand for holding long-dated Treasuries over short-term debt - is the highest in over a decade. Inflation expectations and long-dated yields have shot up too. And one needs to acknowledge that the full impact of Trump's tariffs has yet to be fully felt. But, at this point there has been no U.S. recession, even if growth is slowing. And the market plunge on the back of Trump's April 2 "Liberation Day" tariff debacle lasted a few weeks. The powerful stock market recovery since then suggests investors were less bothered by the actual tariffs than the shock of the initial announcement, the chaotic way it was delivered, and the amateurish way the levies were calculated. This outcome is not what economic textbooks would have predicted. ONE FOR YOU, 19 FOR ME Tariffs are a tax. And the overall U.S. average effective tariff rate looks likely to be around 18%, according to the Budget Lab at Yale. That's down from an estimated 28% in May but still nearly eight times higher than the level in December. Who will ultimately pay this tax is up for debate, but if sustained at that level, the president of the United States will have effectively imposed a tax hike worth around 1.8% of GDP, one of the largest in U.S. history. But wait. Aren't higher taxes bad for business, markets and growth? Don't higher taxes sap consumers' spending power, stunt investment and hiring, and crush the private sector's entrepreneurial spirit? Markets' relatively speedy acceptance raises the question: What happened to the last 40 years of economic orthodoxy, symbolized by the so-called "Washington Consensus"? This was the set of principles drawn up in the late 1980s that broadly mirrored the views of the Washington-based International Monetary Fund, World Bank and U.S. Treasury, ostensibly to help direct policy in Latin America but which ultimately served as the economic framework for Western liberal democracies and global markets. They included support for privatization, deregulation, the free flow of capital, fiscal discipline, and lower taxes. They also entailed lower barriers to trade, a cornerstone of globalization. For years these tenets were regarded by policymakers, business leaders and investors as sacrosanct. Some, like rigid adherence to tight fiscal policy, were put to the test - and shown to be flimsy, at best - during the GFC and pandemic. So now that the tariff line has been crossed, what about other economic commandments? Could governments look to raise tax revenue from other sources, such as wealth taxes on the super rich, a "Tobin tax" on foreign exchange transactions, or other "soft" capital controls? These are obviously anathema to the doctrine of free market capitalism. But then so were tariffs. To be fair, we are just entering this new era. And as my colleague Mike Dolan observed earlier this week, even if tariffs don't send the economy or markets into a tailspin, they may still lead to a "slow burn," with many years of lost economic potential, elevated volatility and lower investment returns. But investors aren't looking that far ahead. What they see right now is a pretty resilient U.S. economy, solid earnings growth, and red-hot optimism around U.S. tech and AI. And some of the old orthodoxies may be in the rear-view mirror. What could move markets tomorrow? * Australia trade (June) * Japan earnings, including Softbank, Sony, Toyota * China trade (June) * China FX reserves (June) * Bank of England interest rate decision * Germany trade (June) * Germany industrial production (June) * U.S. weekly jobless claims * U.S. Treasury auctions $25 bln of 30-year bonds * U.S. earnings including Eli Lilly, ConocoPhillips, GileadSciences, Motorola * Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic speaks Want to receive Trading Day in your inbox every weekday morning? Sign up for my newsletter here. Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias. (By Jamie McGeever; Editing by Nia Williams) Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
6 minutes ago
- Yahoo
First Eagle Investment's Strategic Moves: Spotlight on Becton Dickinson & Co
Analyzing the Latest 13F Filing for Q2 2025 First Eagle Investment (Trades, Portfolio) recently submitted its 13F filing for the second quarter of 2025, offering a glimpse into its strategic investment decisions. Established in 1864, First Eagle is a renowned independent investment management firm known for its value-oriented approach. The firm emphasizes long-term performance over short-term market fluctuations, employing rigorous bottom-up fundamental analysis to mitigate risk. First Eagle's strategy involves on-site research and direct engagement with company management to gain comprehensive insights into investment opportunities. The firm focuses on acquiring securities with intrinsic value and long-term potential that outweigh market risks. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 6 Warning Sign with META. Summary of New Buy First Eagle Investment (Trades, Portfolio) added a total of 19 stocks, among them: The most significant addition was Ferguson Enterprises Inc (NYSE:FERG), with 600,000 shares, accounting for 0.26% of the portfolio and a total value of $130.65 million. The second largest addition to the portfolio was Ciena Corp (NYSE:CIEN), consisting of 118,349 shares, representing approximately 0.02% of the portfolio, with a total value of $9,625,330. The third largest addition was FormFactor Inc (NASDAQ:FORM), with 281,444 shares, accounting for 0.02% of the portfolio and a total value of $9,684,490. Key Position Increases First Eagle Investment (Trades, Portfolio) also increased stakes in a total of 153 stocks, among them: The most notable increase was Becton Dickinson & Co (NYSE:BDX), with an additional 3,268,478 shares, bringing the total to 8,786,190 shares. This adjustment represents a significant 59.24% increase in share count, a 1.1% impact on the current portfolio, with a total value of $1,513,421,270. The second largest increase was ONEOK Inc (NYSE:OKE), with an additional 3,545,256 shares, bringing the total to 6,256,173. This adjustment represents a significant 130.78% increase in share count, with a total value of $510,691,400. Summary of Sold Out First Eagle Investment (Trades, Portfolio) completely exited 38 holdings in the second quarter of 2025, as detailed below: Brown & Brown Inc (NYSE:BRO): First Eagle Investment (Trades, Portfolio) sold all 1,921,699 shares, resulting in a -0.5% impact on the portfolio. Invesco Senior Loan ETF (BKLN): First Eagle Investment (Trades, Portfolio) liquidated all 433,094 shares, causing a -0.02% impact on the portfolio. Key Position Reduces First Eagle Investment (Trades, Portfolio) also reduced positions in 202 stocks. The most significant changes include: Reduced Philip Morris International Inc (NYSE:PM) by 1,852,263 shares, resulting in a -20.62% decrease in shares and a -0.61% impact on the portfolio. The stock traded at an average price of $171.52 during the quarter and has returned -3.46% over the past 3 months and 40.87% year-to-date. Reduced Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE:BRK.A) by 263 shares, resulting in a -28.84% reduction in shares and a -0.44% impact on the portfolio. The stock traded at an average price of $762,376 during the quarter and has returned -8.41% over the past 3 months and 3.31% year-to-date. Portfolio Overview At the end of the second quarter of 2025, First Eagle Investment (Trades, Portfolio)'s portfolio included 392 stocks. The top holdings included 4.83% in Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META), 4.79% in Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL), 3.2% in Imperial Oil Ltd (IMO), 3.19% in Wheaton Precious Metals Corp (NYSE:WPM), and 3.17% in HCA Healthcare Inc (NYSE:HCA). The holdings are mainly concentrated in all 11 industries: Basic Materials, Healthcare, Technology, Communication Services, Consumer Defensive, Energy, Financial Services, Industrials, Real Estate, Consumer Cyclical, and Utilities. This article, generated by GuruFocus, is designed to provide general insights and is not tailored financial advice. Our commentary is rooted in historical data and analyst projections, utilizing an impartial methodology, and is not intended to serve as specific investment guidance. It does not formulate a recommendation to purchase or divest any stock and does not consider individual investment objectives or financial circumstances. Our objective is to deliver long-term, fundamental data-driven analysis. Be aware that our analysis might not incorporate the most recent, price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative information. GuruFocus holds no position in the stocks mentioned herein. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
