A start-up wants the sun to never set. In a unique proposal, a few entrepreneurs are aiming to sell sunlight now.
A startup, Reflect Orbital, in Hawthorne, California, hopes to launch 50,000 large mirrors into Earth’s orbit to cast sunlight on Earth at night. But scientists have expressed some reservations about the idea.
Looks like a plot of a sci-fi movie? Here’s more to the story.
What’s the idea?
Reflect Orbital has proposed deploying 50,000 large mirrors into orbit around Earth, the New York Times (NYT) reported last week.
As per the plan, these 50,000 in-space mirrors will be mounted on satellites, forming a “constellation of satellites” that would reflect sunlight onto the night side of the planet.
This might help power solar farms after sunset, provide lighting for rescue workers and illuminate city streets, among other things, the NYT reported.
“We’re trying to build something that could replace fossil fuels [slow climate change] and really power everything,” Ben Nowack, Reflect Orbital’s chief executive, was quoted as saying in an interview. The company has raised more than $28 million from investors
The company reportedly hopes to be able to illuminate dark areas at a steep price.
Reflect Orbital’s first prototype is roughly the size of a dorm fridge, and is almost complete.
How bright will the night be?
Once in space, about 400 miles up, the test satellite would reveal a square mirror nearly 60 feet wide.
This mirror would bounce sunlight to illuminate a circular patch about three miles wide on the Earth’s surface, the NYT reported.
Someone looking up would see a dot in the sky about as bright as a full moon.
Two more prototypes could follow within a year. By the end of 2028, Reflect Orbital hopes to launch 1,000 larger satellites, and 5,000 of them by 2030.
Reflect Orbital reportedly said it aims to deploy the full constellation of 50,000 satellites by 2035.
The largest mirrors are planned to be nearly 180 feet wide, reflecting as much light as 100 full moons.
Cost of ordering sunlight at night
Ben Nowack, Reflect Orbital’s chief executive, told the NYT that the company would charge about $5,000 an hour for the light of one mirror if a customer signed an annual contract for 1,000 hours or more.
Lighting for one-time events and emergencies, which might require numerous satellites and more effort to coordinate, would be more expensive.
For solar farms, Nowack envisions splitting revenue from the electricity generated by the additional hours of light.
Will this much light be sufficient?
Michael Brown, an astronomer at Australia’s Monash University, suggested that the reflected sunlight from one satellite would be spread over about 18 square miles. That would mean that the number of pho would tons hitting a solar panelbe about 1/140,000th of the rate during midday.
Even with the 180-foot-wide mirrors, “over 3,000 satellites would be required to produce the equivalent of just 20 percent of the midday sun at a single site,” Brown wrote in his comment to the FCC about Reflect Orbital’s application.
He added that with 87,000 satellites, the company could provide, at best, 20 percent of midday illumination to 27 sites. He said that a network of mirror satellites was not an efficient means to augment energy production.
However, the company’s leader, Nowack of Reflect Orbital, said that it had studied the scattering issue in simulations and that the effects were not as dire as critics portrayed. The test satellite will try to validate that, he said.
Permission to launch soon?
According to NYT, California-based startup Reflect Orbital could soon receive permission to launch its first prototype satellite, named Earendil-1, with a 60-foot-wide mirror.
The company reportedly applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which issues the licenses needed to deploy satellites.
If the FCC approves, the test satellite could be launched into orbit as soon as this summer. The FCC’s public comment period on the application closes on Monday, the report added.
‘Ídea is controversial’
Roohi Dalal, an astronomer and director of public policy at the American Astronomical Society, told NYT, “We just don’t have a regulatory process for these types of novel space activities yet.”
Many critics also believe that the mirrors could distract aeroplane pilots and impact astronomical observations.
Concerns were also raised over the possible interference with “circadian rhythms — the light-and-dark cycles that help people, creatures and plants know when to wake and sleep, when to bloom, when to migrate and so forth.”
The extra light at the wrong times of day may confuse animals, hibernating insects and migrating birds. It may also impact flowers and plants.
“If animals were to get confused by the extra light, they might breed at the wrong time, when food is scarce,” Martha Hotz Vitaterna, a research professor of neurobiology at Northwestern University, was quoted by the NYT as saying.
“Light at the wrong times of day could also lead to flowers blooming when pollinators are not active,” Dr. Vitaterna said, adding, “The implications for wildlife, for all life, are enormous.”
But that’s not what FCC checks…
According to the NYT, what concerns the FCC about such satellite deployments is that a spacecraft’s radio communications must not cause interference to others and that the spacecraft must be safely disposed of at the end of its operational lifetime.
The agency’s stance is that activities in space — which, by definition, are not on Earth — are not subject to environmental review, the report added.
‘Light pollution in the night sky’
The NYT report notes astronomers’ concerns about the toll the rapidly rising number of satellites in the night sky is taking on their observatories.
The constellation of nearly 10,000 Starlink satellites operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX now routinely produces bright streaks across photographs of the universe taken by ground-based telescopes.
Some companies, including SpaceX, have voluntarily worked to minimise light pollution in the night sky by making their satellites less reflective, the report added.
(With inputs from the New York Times)
