Space Mirror Sunlight Scheme: Astronomers Alarmed by Startup's "Disastrous" Plan

Reflect Orbital intends to position as many as 4,000 colossal mirrors in lower Earth orbit to beam sunlight onto the dark side of the planet.(Image credit: Reflect Orbital)

A planned venture from a startup situated in California to place 4,000 mirrors, each the dimension of a tennis court, around Earth is “devastating” and “shocking,” astronomers caution.

Reflect Orbital, established in 2021, has recently begun a project to commercialize nighttime sunlight through reflecting solar rays from expansive “reflectors” capable of channeling this crucial energy source almost anywhere on the globe. The firm plans to augment daytime duration in particular areas, enabling paying consumers to produce solar energy, cultivate crops, and substitute municipal illumination.

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As an initial action, Reflect Orbital has recently filed a request with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deploy its initial trial satellite, EARENDIL-1, in early 2026. Should this request be approved and the initial tests prove successful, the business anticipates launching up to 4,000 comparable satellites by 2030, as stated by company officials to Live Science’s affiliate website, Space.com, recently.

Following placement in low Earth orbit (LEO), EARENDIL-1 would extend a squared reflector spanning as much as 59 feet (18 meters) across, leading to a surface dimension of roughly 3,500 square feet (325 square meters). This would enable the mirror to brighten a particular section of Earth’s surface up to 3 miles (5 kilometers) in diameter at any given moment. From the ground, the light within these areas would be as much as fourfold brighter compared to the full moon, as per the company representatives.

The suggested mirrors are anticipated to generate 3-mile-wide “bright spots” on Earth’s terrain. This capture, sourced from an interactive map on the Reflect Orbital website, displays an illustration of such a spot situated over a portion of Los Angeles.

However, future reflectors contained within the proposed grouping could exhibit mirrors stretching up to 177 feet (54 m) in dimension, potentially yielding more substantial and potent bright patches.

Reflect Orbital indicated it could diminish the consequences of its light discharge through diverting the mirrors away from Earth whenever they are not active. “Our service possesses substantial localization,” company representatives conveyed to Space.com. “Every reflection addresses an explicitly defined zone for a limited duration as opposed to presenting continual or widespread illumination.”

However, such affirmations have accomplished little to reassure researchers.

“A terrible idea”

The reflectors are destined to orbit Earth along a sun-synchronous path, inducing them to journey across Earth from pole to pole, orthogonal to the planet’s rotation. Their placement is intended to constantly orient them over the day-night demarcation on our globe, effectively empowering the mirrors to rebound solar emissions from the daylight portion to areas that are dark. In theory, this approach would illuminate areas shortly after sunset or before dawn.

Nonetheless, while the underlying principles governing this concept are robust, experts contend it is far more easily conceptualized than achieved — and they harbor doubts regarding the company’s capacity to realize it.

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Russia had previously examined the concept of beaming sunlight to Earth’s terrain utilizing its Znamya satellites. This mirror was unfolded in 1993 and incinerated within Earth’s atmosphere within several hours.

Their strategy “is from the start flawed, from a technical perspective,” Fionagh Thomson, a space ethics expert at Durham University in England, stated to Live Science via email. “It possesses minimal likelihood of succeeding due to the complexity of the engineering entailed, alongside attempting to operate across congested orbits such as LEO.”

Indeed, this concept has been explored — before being subsequently disregarded — previously. During 1993 and 1999, Russia undertook efforts to launch a pair of similar reflectors referred to as the Znamya satellites, yet terminated the initiative upon confronting difficulties in managing the satellites, both of which rapidly burned up in the atmosphere. (Since then, no additional reflectors have been launched.)

Investigators contributing to The Conversation and Big Think have similarly questioned whether the mirrors retain the capacity to deliver one of the organization’s projected prime services: generating solar electricity.

In principle, the mirrors might be implemented to reflect light toward expansive solar fields on the planet’s surface, therefore prolonging the time frame in which they could produce electricity. Nevertheless, the resultant light would register thousands of times weaker when compared to midday sunlight, implying that the illuminated arrays would yield a nominal fraction of their customary energy. Furthermore, an individual mirror may solely focus light onto a specific point for a maximum duration of merely four minutes consecutively, analysts predict.

Reflect Orbital has plans to brighten enormous solar power facilities with their reflected illumination spots, therefore empowering them to produce amplified energy compared to current levels. However, researchers harbor profound doubt concerning this notion.

Assuming that the mirrors collectively managed to generate adequate electricity, it would stand as “prohibitively costly” when weighed against alternate renewable energy modalities, Thomson stated.

Ultimately, “this represents a disastrous idea,” Samantha Lawler, an astronomy expert affiliated with the University of Regina situated in Canada, disclosed to Live Science via electronic correspondence. However, there still exists a reasonable likelihood that the EARENDIL-1 endeavor will secure authorization from the FCC, as she conjectures.

Blinded by the light

A singular mirror maintains a low probability of substantially affecting the night environment. Although, should Reflect Orbital’s envisioned constellation materialize, astronomers predict mounting difficulty in scrutinizing distant stars apart from the luminance emitted by a multitude of “novel stars” rapidly traversing the night panorama.

Robert Massey, holding the position of deputy executive director at the U.K.’s Royal Astronomical Society, related to Space.com that the astronomical fraternity expressed “profound misgivings regarding the advancement, its ramifications, and the precedent it establishes.”

Light pollution stemming from the increasing quantity of privately owned satellites within LEO presents existing obstacles to astronomers. This duration-compressed photo was captured throughout a span of 30 minutes in May 2023.

Whereas alternative spacecraft, inclusive of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, inadvertently reflect light back toward Earth’s terrain, astronomy experts express specific anxiety pertaining to the intentional instigation of illumination contamination proposed by Reflect Orbital.

“The fundamental intention underpinning this project pertains to brightening the expanse above and extending the duration of daylight, which, incontestably, carries disastrous implications from an astronomical vantage,” Massey expressed.

For unlucky stargazers inadvertently situated inside one of the mirrors’ irradiance zones, the prospect of observing any additional stellar formations across the night expanse would additionally prove nearly impossible, Lawler specified. Prior inquiries into this concept have equally documented that direct viewing of the reflectors through telescopic equipment or binoculars harbors the potential for inducing ocular damage, she supplemented.

Considering the capacity for a mirror to undergo abrupt rotation or relocation at random Earth coordinates absent preemptive notification, no dependable methodology for circumventing this phenomenon remains. Additionally, unforeseen flaring from a reflector’s displacement could potentially distract aviation operators during ascent or descent phases, bearing potentially calamitous outcomes, multiple subject matter specialists have articulated.

Experts give warnings that in the event of stargazers being exposed to flashing light stemming from a rotating mirror, they retain the potential for enduring noteworthy harm to their eyes.

Previous investigations regarding illumination contamination have equally shown its capability to modify the actions of a wide spectrum of both animal and vegetation varieties, as well as disrupt human sleep patterns.

“One modest firm situated in California can, armed with merely a few million dollars in capital and the endorsement of a singular U.S. federal regulatory agency, transform the night expanse accessible to every global citizen,” Lawler emphasized. “This prospect fills one with dread.”

Additional issues

While astronomy experts primarily voice concerns pertaining to the illumination pollution and the imperceptible radio transmission disturbance which these mirrors will probably create, the proposed congregation may embody hazards across additional dimensions.

By way of illustration, the mirrors’ expansive proportions render them increasingly vulnerable to impacts by micrometeoroids or the rapidly proliferating fragments of space refuse that encircle our world, Lawler stated. This situation may result in the reflectors being “perforated by a multiplicity of openings,” thereby rendering them more arduous to regulate, as she went on to say.

Assuming clearance by the FCC, Reflect Orbital’s inaugural satellite christened EARENDIL-1 could potentially initiate launch operations during early 2026.

In a scenario wherein operators forfeit control of a particular mirror, its trajectory could possibly devolve into an uncontrolled spin, mirroring the sequence of occurrences involving NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System, which exhibited tumbling behavior directly after release in August 2024. Should such an incident transpire, the mirrors would generate spasmodic instances of flashing throughout the expanse of the night panorama.