Posted on 07/12/2026 1:08:52 PM PDT by BenLurkin
A Southern California company just received approval to test a space mirror that would reflect sunlight to dark parts of planet Earth.
The Federal Communications Commission issued a license on Thursday to Reflect Orbital, an energy company based in Hawthorne. The license officially allows Reflect Orbital to launch its Earendil-1 satellite using frequencies in UHF, S-band and X-band for “telemetry, tracking, and command (TT&C) and data downlink to support deployment and testing of a solar reflector.”
Reflect Orbital will only be allowed to deploy one satellite at a time for now, the license states.
“Earendil-1 will use a deployable, highly specular thin-film reflector that is motorized and steerable to ensure reflected light is only visible in the targeted area to reflect sunlight to a designated target on the ground at night,” the FCC’s license says. “Earendil-1 is a single satellite and a limited, short-duration technology test exercise designed to evaluate the feasibility of Reflect Orbital’s proposed concept and to identify any challenges associated with future iterations of the technology. The results of this single-satellite mission will inform whether the concept is viable and will assist the company, its prospective customers, and other stakeholders in assessing any future larger scale deployment.”
According to the documents, several entities were against the license approval for a number of reasons, such as radio frequency interference and space debris mitigation. .... “a flood of opposition” came in from astronomers and wildlife experts, among others, who said that the light from the mirrors could “distract airplane pilots, wreak havoc on astronomical observations and interfere with circadian rhythms — the light-and-dark cycles that help people function, animals and plants know when to wake and sleep, to bloom or to migrate.”
But federal officials eventually sided with Reflect Orbital due to public interest and “promotion of American innovation.”
(Excerpt) Read more at ktla.com ...
Still More #ComDem_Insanity!
The mirror is a 60-foot square of mylar. That's considerably smaller than many spacecraft that are already out there in orbit.
It will produce a spot of "moonlight" about 3 miles in diameter on some part of the dark side of the Earth. That spot will illuminate about 7 square miles. The dark side of the Earth is roughly 50 million (50,000,000) square miles.
The light spot is not going to have any large effect on life on Earth. Even a whole lot of them aren't going to have a noticeable effect on circadian rhythms and so forth, compared to, say a city or a forest fire.
As someone who loves star-gazing, I share the astronomers' concern about light pollution. But as for the rest of this hysteria, let's apply some common sense and a little arithmetic and put this in perspective.
What could go wrong?
Reminds me of the one in Moonraker.
😆
Yup.
We still think of that lady 😆
Then she threw lightning bolts or something.
As if regular street lights and security lights aren’t annoying enough. What a dumbass idea.
Can’t DOD be a little more creative than that? Plus won’t those mirrors add to global warming climate change?
“Erf” should always be capitalized.
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