Activist groups file petition with FCC opposing sunlight mirror demo mission
Artist rendition of Earendil deploying in orbit.
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In response to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) approval in early July [pdf] allowing the startup Reflect Orbital to fly a demo mission, dubbed Earendil-1, to test a mirror for providing sunlight to any place on Earth, as needed, activist groups have now filed a petition with FCC opposing this mission.
Four environmental organizations filed a petition Thursday asking the Federal Communications Commission to reverse its approval of a startup’s plan to beam on-demand sunlight from space to Earth, arguing the agency ignored the project’s potential impacts on wildlife, astronomy research and eye safety.
DarkSky International, Environment America, the American Bird Conservancy and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility called on the FCC to overturn a decision last month authorizing Reflect Orbital to launch its Earendil-1 demonstration satellite, which will carry a 59-foot-wide mirror to reflect sunlight onto a specific spot on the planet during periods of darkness.
While the FCC approved only a single test mission, the groups argue it could pave the way for a much larger constellation of satellites in the future.
From an altitude of 400 miles Earendil-1 will try to reflect sunlight into a specific area on Earth at night, focusing a beam of light on an area about 3.1 miles wide.
I missed this FCC approval of Reflect Orbital’s demo mission last month. When the FCC approved it, it went into great detail about why it rejected similar objections, noting repeatedly that these objections were outside its statutory authority. First, it was asked for approve this single demo mission, not the entire constellation, so any objections to the entire constellation were irrelevant. Second, its authority involved use of spectrum for communications, not environmental concerns, and the demo mission’s plans did nothing to harm other communications. Finally, the FCC went into great detail discussing these objections anyway, and found them wanting.
Reflect Orbital hopes to build a 50,000 constellation of such mirror satellites if the demo mission proves the technology and it can then raise the necessary investment capital. At this moment this possibility is merely a proposal and hardly a reality. Before such a constellation is finally approved it certainly will have to demonstrate its ability to mitigate any of these issues, since it will be beaming heat and light down to Earth. The demo mission will help do so.
Nonetheless, the same players who object to every new orbital constellation as well as every new technology anywhere are back again, attempting to use the law to force their Luddite desires on everyone else. Make no mistake, these groups represent few people and are typical “watermelon” leftist environmental activists — green on the outside and red on the inside. Rather than work with Reflect Orbital to mitigate their concerns, they want to use the blunt arm of the law to smash a boot into the face of the company.
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Do bring up the fact that these groups were silent when Fauci filled up landfills with masks.
I just came up with a devilish way to bait the D/S (M) types: ask them about white flight, and gentrification..they will prattle on..let them…then hit them with….so you are saying that when a large number of folks move around, it can be a problem. Chavez thought the same about anti-labor open boarders. You say you hate ICE…so you would also hate it if Mamdami wanted to prevent folks moving.
One thing I don’t like talk radio doing is this spiel against “philosopher kings.”
I want Western Civ’ back in schools myself…and I’d take a Marcus Aurelius over the last seven Presidents.
The MSNBC types railed against meritocracy, yet I thought a lot about the book “In Defense of Elitism”
GUTFELD! showed a hit who hid his face no different than ICE going on about homeless.
The Right should remember that some are veterans, and the Left needs to acknowledge their own role in deinstitutionalization….they because they thought it mean, the other side, because they were too cheap.
This is why we have folks jumping in front of cars while talking to Lincoln, Jesus and Dr. Zaius.
The biggest reason the Flint water crisis makes me angry is that some cost-cutting little so-and-sos poisoned the conservative brand to the point folks would rather vote for someone out of Black September.
Fauci should apologize over COVID, and the GOP needs to apologize for Flint and the uptick in measles that should be laid at RFK’s feet. Admit they were wrong on offshoring, and “right-bait” D/S types saying they want open borders and no tariffs like Reagan did, causing Michigan’s entry into the Rust Belt.
“””When the FCC approved it, it went into great detail about why it rejected similar objections, noting repeatedly that these objections were outside its statutory authority”””
Every Deep State Stalinist just fainted. A government entity did not go above and beyond to expand its authority?
Also, just imagine those parts of the Earth where there is NO Sun for months. If this demo mission proves out, it could be a huge plus for their mental health. Even just a few hours of sunshine a day.
See “A Slight Case of Sunstroke” by none other than Arthur C. Clarke, for a word of caution.
“The biggest reason the Flint water crisis makes me angry is that some cost-cutting little so-and-sos poisoned the conservative brand…”
I know I shouldn’t wade in on these political discussions, but…
How is the Flint water crisis Republicans’ fault? Except for a period of a few months in 2009 after the resignation of the Democratic mayor — five years before the crisis — the Democrats have controlled the Flint city government (and the local water board) continuously since 1975.
mkent, You are right. I barely understand the vague references, the acronyms, the thought process and where it leads on most of his postings. It intrigues me that it’s almost an art form but does it communicate anything? I think this is what Timothy Leary must’ve sounded like on mushrooms.
The Democrats knew they were poisoning the water for decades and did nothing. No, this is wrong… It was actually intentional! just as fluoridation, a poison which lowers the IQ of the population, is intentional.
The next sentence;” the uptick in measles that should be laid at RFK’s feet.” it’s also misleading. The measles was tested for it strain and found to be “patented by the pharmaceutical”… In other words, the outbreak “came from the shots” and wasn’t the wild measles variety.
The mirror in space is a tempest in a teapot. The solar panels on the space station reflect a lot of light but is hardly brighter than a jet plane flying over. The mirrors are only useful within an hour after sundown, then they pass into the shadow of the earth. To be useful in the dead of night, you will need mirrors to reflect light on the mirrors in the shadow to reflect down to earth.
I suspect this is a clever ploy for an advertising campaign while people are still awake just after sunset.
It reminds me when I would argue with professors about the ozone hole allowing UV radiation to penetrate. (remember the 80s and the 90s when the sky was falling?) In September when the yearly hole appears, the sun is near the polar horizon which means the only UV radiation going through the hole is reflecting upward off of the ice cap.
By October, the polar stratospheric clouds are gone and the ozone recovers before the sun is in position over the pole.
How big would this thing have to be at 400 miles for it to appear the same apparent size of the moon?
The full moon (and sun) are about 0.5 deg = 0.085 rad in angular diameter. An object 400 mi away would need to span 0.085*400 = 3.5 mi = 6200 yd
By comparison the ISS spans a bit over 100 yd.
Thank you my mathematician friend.
It would have to be that large to make a significant light beam for the solar panels on the ground.
How long would it take to build something 3.5 miles wide? And keep it stable? Imagine the fuel requirements for stabilization thrusters.
Something that large would require constant maintenance.
Just to keep a solar farm operating at night.
And finally… Global Warming!!!!!!
pzatchok,
“How long would it take to build something 3.5 miles wide?”
Well, there’s a good question. It would have taken a long time, ten years ago, but these days Starlink satellites are being built and launched by the score, so it would take less time, now. Especially once Starship comes online and can launch many more at a time.
“And keep it stable?”
An alternative that would work much better is to make many smaller reflectors, such as this test reflector, that add to an equal reflective area.
A = π * R^2
R= 6,200 yd/2 = 3,100 yd
A = π * 3,100^2 = 30,190,705 yd^2
The mirror on this satellite is 59 ft x 59 ft, about 20 yd square, or 400 yd^2
30,190,705 yd^2 / 400 yd^2 per satellite = 75,477 satellites of this test size.
This test reflector would only look like a star, especially since it is going to reflect sunlight onto an area 3.1 miles wide.
“Imagine the fuel requirements for stabilization thrusters.”
Assuming that the stability requirements are the same as a geostationary communication satellite, fifteen years of stabilization propellants aren’t so very heavy. Much of the stability is done by momentum wheels or reaction wheels, so that there is not a lot of overcorrection done by thrusters.
One large mirror structure, on the other hand, would likely have to deal with stabilizing vibrations over the large distances of the 6,200 yd mirror. Keeping the whole thing constantly pointing correctly could be very fuel intensive.
“Something that large would require constant maintenance.”
Could be. Small parts would fail over time, and either they would have to be abandoned (left broken) or repaired constantly.
“And finally… Global Warming!!!!!!”
Some people might worry about that, but the relative size of this humongous mirror compared with the area of the earth, which is already collecting solar energy is:
3,100 yd squared / 6,400,000 yd (earth radius) squared = 9,610,000 yd^2 / 40,960,000,000,000 yd^2 = 0.000,000,23
One of those humongous mirrors would barely make a difference. A period of reduced cloudiness would be more dominant on the Earth’s temperature. It would take four million of the 3.5 mile diameter reflectors to double the solar energy falling on the planet.
I was just wondering how long just one of these sats would have to be in space to beam back the energy it took to build and launch them?
I can understand a test like like this to work out possible problems, but I can not see them being cheap enough and efficient enough to pay for themselves. Who would ultimately be paying the bill for this full system?
Another question to those who might know better.
Wouldn’t the very solar energy also push them out of place unless actively moved back into place? Like a solar sail.
pzatchok asked: “I was just wondering how long just one of these sats would have to be in space to beam back the energy it took to build and launch them?”
That is a somewhat difficult question to answer. When I get these kinds of questions, comparing energy to energy, I tend to use money as a proxy, on the assumption that materials cost the energy needed to make them. Payroll affects this assumption, but I rationalize the choice by merely adding in the energy needed for the employees’ lifestyles. If the employees were not employed making these products, then they (or an equivalent number of families) would be impoverished and living homeless lifestyles, using very little power or electricity.
*** A warning about the efficacy of this analysis: The price of materials and of assembling products is largely dependent upon payroll costs, not so much upon actual energy costs or usage to process the materials or to run the various facilities, so this proxy may be a poor one for answering this question. ***
So, with that assumption in mind, a reasonable assumption for the cost of a small geostationary communication satellite (medium size for a satellite in general) is $50 million, and the launch cost via Falcon 9 is about $35 million, assuming two medium satellites launch on a Falcon, so one of these satellites would have to generate somewhere around $85 million in electricity to break even. Using California electricity rates probably skews this comparison, because our electricity is very expensive compared to the rest of the country and to the areas that manufacture the satellite’s materials (one of the ways that my cost vs cost assumption can break down unexpectedly), so I will use a round-number assumption of 10¢ per kilowatt-hour. The $85 million satellite has to generate 850 million kilowatt-hours to break even. Rounding out some numbers, if the 400 square-yard (20 yards by 20 yards) test satellite from the post, above, produces electricity at 25% efficiency (probably a little high for reality), then the satellite generates 100 kilowatts (roughly 1.3 kilowatts per square meter X 25% efficiency = ~0.25 kw/square yard). So, the satellite would have to last 850,000,000 kilowatt-hours ÷ 100 kilowatts = 8,500,000 hours, or about a thousand years to break even. To paraphrase the movie Jaws: I think you’re going to need a bigger satellite.
200 yards by 200 yards would be 100 times the reflecting area, or 1,000 years ÷ 100 = ten years of operation. This is reasonable, but can we make 200yd-square do the needed job?
“I can understand a test like like this to work out possible problems, but I can not see them being cheap enough and efficient enough to pay for themselves. Who would ultimately be paying the bill for this full system?”
It isn’t just seeking out and working out potential problems, it is a proof of concept test. If a 20 yard square reflector cannot do the expected task, then making a larger one may be futile.
On the other hand, if a 200 yard square reflector works, current geostationary satellites operate for 15 years, and our reflector satellites could be designed to operate for longer. Maybe much longer, and anything more than ten years is cash cow — er — power cow. This would be something that a power company could, would, and should pay for, as it is the power company that would use it most and would make the profit from the generated power.
“Wouldn’t the very solar energy also push them out of place unless actively moved back into place? Like a solar sail.”
The solar energy is not what pushes a solar sail around. It turns out that massless photons (light) have momentum. The universe is a strange and mysterious place, and this is one of the universe’s unexpected properties. It is why quantum mechanics (QM) is so difficult to cope with, because Newtonian physics (classical physics, the kind of physics of the world that we live in) is violated. It is difficult to understand QM, Einsteinian physics (relativity), and string theory (or quantum loop, or whatever theory).
A reflecting solar sail is more desirable than one that collects photons, but either way, there is a constant push. For an orbital solar reflector that reflects onto a ground-based power generator, the answer is:
Yes, space-based solar reflectors and even space-based power plants would be slowly pushed out of position. It is a small push, but it is persistent, and it is one of the smaller perturbations that affect current satellites, including geostationary communication satellites. Stationkeeping is already a necessary aspect to satellite operations, especially the current geostationary satellites, as their entire purpose for being in that orbit is to remain in one consistent location relative to the earth surface. We already know how to do stationkeeping and attitude control, so this is not a big deal.
As an added note: some few satellites (and probes) have solar arrays that only extending from one side, and there are two ways of countering the torque that results from the push of the photons: 1) perform more attitude-control maneuvers, or 2) put a counteractive reflector on the other side of the satellite. The choice is heavily influenced by the weight of the additional attitude-control propellant needed vs. the weight of the counteracting “sail.”
The Flint water crisis was the fault of Republicans is that they sought to do an end run around home rule.
In Alabama, you have the longest written state constitution that does that. There, Republicans de facto disenfranchised cities. On the one hand, you can understand why—but it went badly.
In Michigan, they had some emergency managers come up with a boneheaded move to get water from the Flint river. Democrats botched the sewers emptying in to the Potomac, but in Flint–it was drinking water put at hazard with cost cutting done thanks to interference.
So even with Gretchen Whitmer Jenner botching things with COVID overreach stupidity, lead tainted water still hurt the Republican brand to where they’d consider voting for Black September.
Michigan isn’t quite as bad as Minnesota, which needs a neutron device detonated to just start over–but the reason Trump won that state is that because–trade wise–he is really a Gephardt Democrat. Union folks actually liked him, since the DNC became free traitors like Reagan. A Mitt Romney or Jeb would have NO chance there.
I think that (oddly enough, due to fundie Muslims) social conservatives willing to compromise on things like living wages might do well there. For the GOP to win there, they need Clinton-era triangulation. 9/11 candidate jokes about Abdul the butcher are fine on GUTFELD!, but a path to victory would be to do what Fauci won’t, and apologize. I want to hear Michigan Republicans go more populist, embrace Trump and admit Reagan was wrong on free-trade and union busting –then ask why Democrats support weak borders like Reagan did and Chavez didn’t.
That is what I mean by “Right-baiting:” you ask why today’s Democrats have the same platform libertarians have…open borders and no defense spending :)
I remember long ago when Democrats were pro-border and pro-union…and Republicans said the same thing about them that they say about MAGA/tea party types now who are also a bit more protectionist.
One line on talk radio was “the fastest way to find a union man is to go to a klan rally, and the fastest way to find a klansman was to go to a union rally.”
And Mitt Romney scratches his head why no one voted for him.
I will leave this here:
https://townhall.com/news/mattvespa/2026/08/08/why-mike-rowe-doesnt-blame-the-folks-fueling-the-socialist-resurgence-among-dems-n2680913
Mike Rowe for President
Mike Rowe, like Rush Limbaugh, is far more influential where he is. Something Limbaugh recognized (and would tell his callers); I suspect Rowe has reached the same conclusion. Mike Rowe, by the way, will never buy a drink in a bar where I am present.
TBF, the unions sent a similar message to their rank-and-file … you don’t have to go beyond the minimum, and for sure don’t go beyond the union’s work rules. Trust us to make sure you get what you (think you) deserve – we don’t worry about the intersection of productivity and market reality, and you don’t either.
Both messages have the same flaw … they absolve the recipient of the message of the responsibility to protect themselves through their own prudence.