California startup Reflect Orbital opened an order for light delivery service to any point on Earth. The location can be selected directly from the smartphone, and the service will work with the help of a chain of satellites that will reflect sunlight to the Earth.
As the developers note, this will make it possible to receive daylight anywhere in the world, regardless of the time of day.< /p>
The satellites that will be used by Reflect Orbital are equipped with special mirrors that are able to capture and reflect sunlight to certain areas of the Earth. You can order lighting through the mobile application, specifying the desired location and light intensity. Reflect Orbital notes that the mirrors will direct light into solar power plants to increase renewable electricity production after dark.
Reflect Orbital proposes to launch a group of 57 small satellites that will orbit the Earth in a sun-synchronous polar orbit at an altitude of 600 km. In this orbit, the satellites will orbit the planet from pole to pole and fly over every point on Earth at the same time of day, making two passes in 24 hours. Together, the 57 satellites will be able to provide power plants with an extra 30 minutes of sunlight when energy consumption increases.
The satellites will weigh just 16 kg each and will be equipped with 9.9m by 9.9m Mylar mirrors that will deploy directly in orbit. Mylar is a plastic material used in space blankets, insulation, and packaging. The mirrors are designed to concentrate light into a narrow beam that can be directed and focused depending on the needs of the solar farm operators. The developers emphasize that this will avoid additional light pollution. “If you're about 10 km from the edge of a solar farm site, you won't see any light at all if you look directly at the sky,” explains Reflect Orbital.
Last summer, Reflect Orbital tested mirrors on a balloon, hovering 3 km above the solar farm. Then it was possible to produce “500 watts of energy per square meter”. of a solar panel, which is approximately "half the brightness of the sun". The company has already received funding to launch its first test satellite into space.
For now, Reflect Orbital continues to improve the technology, so it does not name the exact date of the launch of the service. A prototype light-reflecting satellite could enter orbit in 2025.
Orbital mirrors have their opponents. Speaking at a conference in London, Andrew Williams of the European Southern Observatory warned that orbital reflectors, if not carefully designed, could outshine the brightest stars and exacerbate the light pollution problem astronomers already face. In the summer, researchers found out that the new Starlink direct communication (DTC) satellites are almost five times brighter than conventional ones. They are located in low Earth orbit and are designed to provide cellular services, not the Internet. The light reflected by these satellites is bright enough not only to disturb amateur astronomers, but also to cause “severe image degradation” at wide-angle astronomical instruments, including the Vera Rubin Observatory at the University of Arizona.