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When humans mess with the sun in science fiction, it’s often when a supervillain covers it up and imposes perpetual darkness. A space technology company called Reflect Orbital wants to do the opposite: bring sunlight to the dark side of Earth through satellites equipped with giant mirrors. the FCC approved One satellite was launched as a test trial on Thursday, and many scientists are already unhappy with it.
The approval gave Reflect Orbital the green light to send the Eärendil-1 satellite into orbit. It is a relatively small spacecraft, weighing 142 kilograms (313 pounds).
In its body is a thin-film square mirror measuring 18 meters by 18 meters (about 60 feet by 60 feet). The satellite is scheduled to be launched into space aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 spacecraft later in 2026.
Eärendil-1 promises to reflect sunlight back onto Earth in a 3-mile circle that can be directed to essentially anywhere that doesn’t have sunlight. The company has Web tool This shows you what this would look like, and it’s wide enough to light up entire neighborhoods, making it look like daytime when it’s actually night.
Ostensibly, this will be used to power solar panels at night, thus bypassing their major drawback: they can only collect energy during the day. According to To reflect the orbitalelectricity demand rises right after sunset, which means power companies have to rely on other energy sources to handle the increased load. (Battery storage helps keep solar energy flowing after sunset.) This increases the use of fossil fuels, which is… Contributing factor to climate change.
Eärendil-1 is designed to reflect sunlight to a radius of approximately 3 miles, giving it the ability to light up a small town.
Reflect Orbital says it wants to deploy 50,000 of these satellites if the technology demonstration proves successful. This would place 16.2 million square meters of mirrors in low Earth orbit to illuminate large parts of the Earth on demand. Currently, only the Eärendil-1 satellite has been approved for launch.
Scientists say this could be a disaster
Academics had long opposed the launch of Eärendil-1 before FCC approval. more 1800 comments (PDF) were submitted during the proposal stage, and most were negative.
Researchers tend to agree that having 50,000 satellites beaming sunlight back to Earth might be just as bad as having a supervillain completely block out sunlight.
Several organizations have filed complaints, including the American Astronomical Society and the advocacy group DarkSky International, citing potential problems directing even modest amounts of sunlight to Earth in the middle of the night.
“The concept of illuminating Earth from orbit represents a new category of artificial light at night with global environmental, cultural and regulatory consequences,” DarkSky said in a statement. Open letter To reflect the orbital. “Based on current scientific evidence, we do not see a viable path for this technology to align with the principles of responsible lighting or with our mission to protect natural darkness.”
Astronomers are also high on the list of people who oppose lighting a large mirror at night, pointing out that even a single mirror flying in front of a telescope could overwhelm sensitive equipment at ground-based observatories. Since most astronomy research must be conducted at specific times, due to the larger motion of the universe, space mirrors reflecting sunlight would mean missed opportunities to collect essential data.
Scientists are too unhappy With the idea that one company in one country can destroy the sky for the rest of the world.
Only one satellite has been approved for testing at the moment, but Reflect Orbital wants to put 50,000 of them into orbit one day.
Blue skies and light pollution
Olivier Hainaut, an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory outside Munich, Germany, and author of Study 2026 He explains the impact of large satellite constellations on astronomy, and says that light scattering is a serious problem.
“The light from the satellites will also propagate into the atmosphere and raise the brightness of the entire sky,” Heino said in an email. This is why the sky is blue during the day, because sunlight is scattered in the atmosphere, and a similar effect could occur if thousands of satellites shine light on Earth. This light pollution would hamper efforts to see the stars, even if the mirrors were not pointed directly at the observatories.
The American Astronomical Society notes that light scattering in the atmosphere can cause light pollution even in areas where mirrors do not directly reflect light. “A single RO satellite such as Eärendil-1 is expected to have an optical brightness of at least 2 to 4 times that of a full moon,” the AAS said. In a complaint (PDF) To the Federal Communications Commission.
Reflect Orbital notes that “there is no consistent regulatory framework for space power and lighting services,” and says it is Open to regulation And work alongside scientists. The company also says it intends to learn from its test satellite before sending additional satellites into space, and to do its best to avoid flashing its mirrors at observatories.
Experts remain skeptical. Hino says Reflect Orbital has indicated that major observatories may be safe from the company’s satellite constellation, but she questions university-level observatories, amateur astronomers, and casual skywatchers. These are problems that Hino insists need to be addressed before launching a large constellation, but he says a single satellite might actually have some value.
“Although I am professionally opposed to deploying the full constellation, I am actually OK with the prototype,” Hino said. “It will give us (and everyone else) a chance to measure the thing, measure how bright it is, and for Reflect Orbital to showcase its capabilities (for its business) and the mitigation measures it envisions (for everyone else).”
