The Patriot Post® · Will Reflect Orbital Light Up Your Life?

By David R. Legates

If you haven’t been following along with the so-called “climate crisis,” let me bring you up to date.

The planet is warming because energy from the Sun is trapped in the atmosphere due to an increase in greenhouse gases. Plans are afoot to cool the planet through several geoengineering tricks, which include putting reflective aerosols into the stratosphere to mimic volcanic eruptions; spraying fine sea salt particles into low ocean clouds to make them thicker; dispersing particles into high-altitude cirrus clouds to remove them and allow heat to escape more quickly; forcing homeowners to use white shingles on their roofs; and making crops and ocean water more reflective.

So, I was stunned when I read, “The Federal Communications Commission [FCC] has approved a proposal allowing a company to turn night into day — literally.” What?!?

I figured it was a typo. I’ve read quite a bit about using mirrors in space to reflect sunlight before it reaches the Earth, so I assumed that this was what the FCC had focused on — a company that was putting mirrors in space to cool the planet. Thus, this had to be a misprint.

But I kept reading and was surprised to learn that it was no misprint. A company called Reflect Orbital had been given permission by the FCC to launch a single mirror into space to reflect light from the Sun onto any dark region of the Earth, thereby, as the lead sentence suggests, “to turn night into day.” The FCC’s approval allows Reflect Orbital to test its space mirror for up to two years.

So, I navigated to the Reflect Orbital website. They tout themselves as “The Sunlight Company” that “makes clean, abundant energy available on demand.” They go on to make the claim that “We exist because reliable access to affordable energy is the foundation of human progress, economic growth, and a healthier planet.”

Wow, that sounds like they could team up with the Cornwall Alliance. Maybe we are on the same page. So, I kept reading.

Reflect Orbital claims it will be able to provide a precise beam of light three miles in radius to any highly localized location that the end user desires. It is adjustable. That is, the intensity of light has the equivalent of a dimmer switch so you can request anything from “noon light to moon light.” The company can provide light instantaneously, and the light can be turned on and off with just a click on their app — no need to have any ground infrastructure on the user’s end.

But what are we going to do with all that nighttime sunlight beaming down to Earth?

There are many uses, the company argues. For example, it can expand solar energy potential by allowing solar panels to acquire solar energy during the night, when they usually produce nothing. Sites of natural or human-induced disasters can be illuminated to allow victims to be pulled from the rubble or firefighters to illuminate and fight fires. Industry can light up the night to extend working hours or to improve safety. Agricultural crops can grow twenty-four-seven to shorten the time needed to bring a crop to harvest, to grow two crops during a single season, or to increase the growing season so crops can grow where they normally could not. Reflect Orbital’s mirrors can be used to replace streetlights, thereby saving energy and enhancing urban life, or to illuminate events such as State Fairs or outdoor concerts to allow attendees to stay well into the night. And they have benefits for the Department of War, as uninterrupted solar power and illumination could be beneficial for critical military operations. Why, the uses are endless ….

With enough of these reflecting mirrors, Reflect Orbital argues that it can “unlock the Sun’s full potential” and, again with enough mirrors, solar panels, and a healthy dose of imagination, the world could be powered exclusively by solar energy — all night long.

Funding for Reflect Orbital comes through venture capital investments and governmental support. Sequoia Capital, Lux Capital, Baiju Bhatt, and Starship Ventures have contributed most of their funding. Through 2025, their total funding was between $30 and $35 million dollars. Defense-related research funding from the US Air Force Research Laboratory also contributed a $1.25 million SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research) contract.

But just how many of these mirrors will be in orbit?

By the end of 2026, Reflect Orbital expects to have just two satellites operational. But by the end of 2027, there should be 36. The number would exceed 1,000 by the end of 2028, and 5,000 by 2030. By 2035, the total number of Reflect Orbital satellites in orbit will be 50,000.

A graphic on the company’s home page suggests a fleet of 64,786 ringing the globe and generating a delivery of more than one terawatt of power. By 2035, they estimate, they can deliver a 20 percent capacity factor on solar factories for 300 watts per square meter for three hours. A footnote suggests that if one assumes “a typically overbuilt solar farm, production increase for southern California is estimated to be 0.75 percent and Germany is expected to be 1.4 percent.” Remember that Germany is at a higher latitude and thus gets less solar energy in the winter.

Well, the American Astronomical Society has objected to these mirrors, arguing they would contribute to light pollution and interfere with research telescopes. But the Reflect Orbital website suggests that they would “maintain strict exclusion zones for astronomy and sensitive environments.”

Is this akin to the discovery of radioactivity, which ushered in the nuclear age? A closer look is warranted.

The first thing I never see mentioned is cost. Romeo could light up the night for ten minutes to propose to his Juliet — which would be unique — but just how much would Romeo have to shell out to make that happen? How much more expensive would solar energy become if it were generated by mirror-light at night? How much more expensive would an ear of corn become if it were grown through night illumination? And how much more would it cost your local city if it replaced streetlights with mirror-light for nighttime protection?

Another question not addressed by either the company or the article is, “What are they going to do with those pesky clouds?” You see, the mirror-light will be above the clouds and thus, if there is a substantial cloud cover, how is Reflect Orbital’s beam of solar energy going to get down to the surface? Clouds, despite being the big wildcard in climate, can turn direct sunlight into a fuzzy haze. Let’s say we pay to have our nighttime backyard party lit up like it was twelve noon. But on the day of the party, there is a thick stratus cloud deck over the area. How is Reflect Obital going to push their solar beam through the clouds and light up our backyard? Has anyone thought about the impact of clouds on this great idea?

But apart from the complaint by the American Astronomical Society, the article gave no objections from environmentalists. I could not imagine that they would be on board with this, even given their love for solar energy. So, I looked around the Internet for a bit, and I found lots of environmentalists who have issues with Reflect Orbital. In addition to the American Astronomical Society, a total of twenty-seven other scientific-sounding organizations had submitted their objections to the effort.

But their concerns were rebuffed by the FCC. The American Institute of Biological Sciences, for example, argued that the efforts by Reflect Orbital to solve the problem of night darkness is not a problem that needs to be solved; rather, humans and other organisms need access to darkness to maintain circadian rhythms, and severe health effects can arise if the cycle of light and darkness is disrupted.

Moreover, full deployment and maintenance of more than 50,000 space mirrors would create pollution from rocket emission to launch the mirrors and to continually replace them, not to mention polluting the geostationary orbit with more space debris and satellites. Most of the organizations levelling the complaints argue that a comprehensive environmental impact assessment had not been conducted.

And not to be outdone, some groups have argued that darkness has both a cultural and indigenous value that should not be commercialized, as it is a shared heritage. The night sky, they argue, is a global commons, and no private company should be allowed to alter Earth’s natural lighting conditions. Although international governance, they argue, has not yet weighed in on the issue, it is obvious that developed nations are likely to benefit from the mirrors at the expense of undeveloped and underdeveloped nations. Yes, space mirrors are clearly for the ultra-rich.

Then, too, there’s the problem of “light pollution.” Remember, Reflect Orbital’s mirrors will light up an area with a diameter of three miles. Few people or companies own contiguous land measuring three miles in diameter. So, your neighbor wants to light up his midnight party — but you fall within the night-time light. You wanted a nice night’s sleep and the enjoyment of soft moonlight through your curtainless windows. Instead, you get “bright-as-day” at 2 a.m. Essentially, this would be what common law would define as a trespass. Maybe you could endure that for just one night. But if your neighbor’s a farmer who wants his corn crop doused with sunlight from sundown to sunup, that won’t be for just one night, it will have to last night after night through the growing season to make a difference.

Reflect Orbital’s response is that their mirrors are precisely steerable, used only on demand, avoid sensitive areas or any other areas that the international community deems “off-limits,” and would be beneficial for disaster response, mining, construction, peak energy demand conditions, any other applications requiring temporary illumination.

In addition to costs, though, what also seems to be completely missing in the criticism of Reflect Orbital’s mirrors is — maybe you guessed it — global warming.

I would have expected the first complaint arising from environmentalists to be that the additional energy beamed from above would heat the planet beyond what it has already been warmed due to the use of fossil fuels.  But searching as I could, I found no criticisms by environmentalists along these lines. With anything else, the first complaint would have been that it would exacerbate the single most existential threat to the planet — global warming. But for Reflect Orbital’s mirrors? Crickets.

There is an old saying. When science is on your side, you argue the science. When it isn’t, you level ad hominem attacks. Maybe the corollary holds. When the idea is clearly detrimental, you try to refute the arguments for why it is a bad idea. When it isn’t, you play the “existential threat to the planet” card.

Quite possibly I have discovered the environmentalists’ game plan. But then we knew this all along.

David R. Legates, Ph.D., is Director of Research and Education for the Cornwall Alliance, retired Professor of Climatology at the University of Delaware, and co-editor of Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism.