Seeking Profits, Private Companies Look to Light up the Night Sky
Reflect Orbital’s plan to deliver “sunlight on demand” using thousands of giant orbital mirrors is just the latest in a growing list of disruptive commercial activities in space
For astronomers, the sky isn’t exactly falling—yet the sky-high ambitions of tech companies seeking profits in Earth orbit and beyond are becoming too disruptive to ignore. SpaceX’s Starlink Internet service, built with thousands of telescope-photobombing satellites, is the poster child for this problematic trend, but it’s not alone. The latest start-up with brash out-of-this-world plans is Reflect Orbital, which has built a business case for beaming sunlight from orbit to power solar farms after dark. The company, based in Hawthorne, Calif., next to SpaceX’s former headquarters, recently sought a license from the Federal Communications Commission to launch its first satellite in 2026 and plans to put thousands more in orbit.
The satellite that Reflect Orbital aims to loft in 2026 is a test spacecraft dubbed EARENDIL-1—a Lord of the Rings–inspired name that, like many other tech companies and products that reference the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, would probably make the anti-industrial author roll in his grave.
If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
Overheating and station-keeping could be big problems for the sprawling, sunbathed satellite, as could the precise control required to pinpoint a reflected beam onto targets far below. The beam would also shed some of its energy in the atmosphere, with the potential for clouds and inclement weather to dramatically degrade its intensity. Overcoming these overlapping challenges would be a tall order, and the transmission losses alone could be astronomical across such vast distances, McKnight says. Reflect Orbital isn’t the first organization to attempt giant mirrors in space for the purpose of beaming sunlight onto Earth: Russian space agency scientists pursued and even launched a prototype spacecraft in the 1990s before ultimately abandoning the effort.
Reacting to the company’s announcements, a group of astronomers produced a fact sheet on October 6. It stated, “There are already solutions right here on Earth to many of the problems ‘sunlight as a service’ purports to solve. This approach is simply a reckless and inefficient use of Earth orbit, a precious and finite resource.” In a statement to Scientific American, Reflect Orbital’s chief strategy officer Ally Stone said the company “is committed to protecting dark skies,” and that its first missions would involve “tightly controlled light spots steered well away from observatories and sensitive areas.”
If the company’s plans come to fruition, following its tests next year it will begin launching more mirror-toting satellites, ultimately building a mega constellation of 4,000 by 2030. Each would be capable of casting a 5 km-wide beam about four times brighter than the full moon down to Earth. But atmospheric scattering would ensure that some light escapes each beam, says John Barentine, a Tucson, Ariz.–based astronomer and executive officer of Dark Sky Consulting, which advises companies and city officials on outdoor lighting use. “We’ve calculated that, even relatively far from the beam, the [satellites] would still have an apparent brightness that would make them among the brightest objects in the night sky,” he says.
Large numbers of satellites in low-Earth orbit are crucial to Reflect Orbital’s plans because a daisy-chain approach is required to consistently illuminate a target on the ground. A single satellite there could only beam sunlight to a surface target for some four minutes before flying out of range, whereupon another satellite would take over with its own beam. This process could continue for an hour or two during twilight and dawn. In addition to the potential effects on ground-based astronomical observatories, which already struggle to study the universe through existing levels of light pollution, Barentine fears the beaming could also have dire consequences for nocturnal wildlife—as well as the celestial views of everyday stargazers.
Besides Reflect Orbital’s planned fleet of satellites, he cites other companies’ bright spacecraft—not only SpaceX’s Starlink mega constellation, which now includes more than 8,000 among its ranks, but also Amazon’s growing Project Kuiper satellite fleet. Other problematic projects are AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird satellites and its BlueWalker 3 prototype, which Barentine and his colleagues have shown to be exceptionally bright.
Reflect Orbital’s plan isn’t an isolated phenomenon, says Jordan Bimm, a space historian and an assistant professor of science communication at the University of Chicago. “Humans have been sending weird stuff to space for a while,” he says. Numerous times, NASA astronauts have brought up various trinkets or smuggled items to space, including an unauthorized corned beef sandwich taken on the Gemini III mission in 1965 and a gorilla suit brought to the International Space Station in 2016. Furthermore, robotic missions have often included “festooning,” stowing or bolting small, nontechnical elements that don’t directly involve the mission on landers and rovers, often for public engagement or other purposes.
“But there’s zany, and then there’s deeply concerning,” Bimm says. The past few years have brought multiple contentious space projects and concepts: For the first test flight of its Falcon Heavy rocket in 2018, SpaceX launched an entire into space, where the gradual, chaotic effects of orbital mechanics could eventually push it on a collision course with Earth or Mars. The following year live tardigrades were crash-landed on the surface of the moon via the Beresheet spacecraft, operated by the Israel-based nonprofit SpaceIL, which may have constituted a technical breach of planetary protection protocols. And not one but two companies had “lunar memorial services” (that is, cremated human remains) as payloads onboard last year’s Astrobotic lunar lander, which failed in Earth orbit. In addition, a Russian company, Avant Space, seeks to launch , where they would also contaminate the night sky. And the Japanese company ALE wants to deploy spacecraft that would generate high-visibility artificial meteor showers on demand.
The trend extends into proposals for commercial space infrastructure as well. Tech companies such as Nvidia and Hewlett Packard Enterprise have begun exploring the feasibility of launching solar-powered space-based data centers, and space-tech titans Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have each recently voiced vigorous support for the idea. And of course, billionaires themselves have traveled to space, including founders of companies that are leading efforts to design the first commercial space stations, which may gain prominence when government facilities such as the International Space Station cease operations.
For most of the 20th century, space activities remained largely the purview of powerful nations, with an initial emphasis on cold-war-era military applications, followed by more science-centric “soft power” feats such as moon landings, interplanetary missions and orbital telescopes, Bimm points out. But in the 21st century, lower launch costs and better spacecraft designs have allowed myriad commercial schemes and a host of new opportunities and controversies.
There’s currently limited national and international oversight of many of these commercial space projects, but it doesn’t have to be that way, argues Aaron Boley, a planetary scientist at the University of British Columbia and co-founder of the Outer Space Institute, a network of space experts. “In general, nation states remain responsible for authorizing and supervising their respective commercial space activities,” but some regulations need updating, he says. For U.S.-based companies, that means oversight is critical from regulatory agencies such as the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Communications Commission, and other countries should make similar efforts, he says. In addition, the bedrock of space law, the Outer Space Treaty, states the overarching principle that countries must have “due regard” for others, which ultimately means that it’s everyone’s shared responsibility to protect Earth orbit and the moon as a common heritage for humanity.
But potential innovations can’t be the only consideration, Bimm says. “I’m not against being bold in space,” he says. “I think being bold is important, but you must also be thoughtful.”
Ramin Skibba is a science writer based in San Diego, Calif. He can be found at https://raminskibba.net
If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.
I’ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.
If you , you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.
In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, , must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.
There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you’ll support us in that mission.
Thank you,
David M. Ewalt, Editor in Chief, Scientific American
Source: www.scientificamerican.com