FCC Approves Launch of Sunlight-Reflecting Satellite Proposed by Reflect Orbital

Reflect Orbital received approval from the US Federal Communications Commission to launch a low-Earth orbit satellite equipped with movable mirrors, part of its broader proposal to deploy 50,000 such devices that would each generate a 5-kilometre-wide roving patch of illumination.

The company, founded in 2021 by Ben Nowack and Tristan Semmelhack, raised $US20 million in seed funding from Silicon Valley venture capitalists and maintains an office across the road from SpaceX near Los Angeles. The Crown Prince of Dubai has expressed interest in the plan.

Robert Salazar, who joined Reflect Orbital in 2023 as the founding engineer and departed this year, told Abc this week that a single satellite would not generate significant solar power on the ground. Salazar said orbital reflectors may be better suited to providing moonlight levels of illumination to parties and other events.

Abc reported that Russian scientists deployed a 20-metre mylar reflector in the 1990s to shine a spot of light across Europe.

Satellites must orbit at about 625 km to form a relatively bright spot, producing an illuminated patch roughly 5 km across. An 18-metre wide mirror might produce light several times brighter than the Moon, which measures about 0.3 lux on a clear night.

Michael Brown calculated that Reflect Orbital would need 3,000 satellites, each equipped with 54 m-wide mirrors, to achieve 20 per cent of midday sunlight illumination, which reaches about 100,000 lux.

Each satellite could provide light to a given location for no more than 3.5 minutes. Reflect Orbital has suggested charging $US1,000 an hour per satellite, meaning an hour of sunlight at one location would require tens of thousands of satellites at a cost of $US10–$US20 million.