The Californian startup Reflect Orbital plans to implement an ultra-ambitious plan: they propose solving the problem of energy supply and lighting using an array of space mirrors. Tens of thousands of satellites in orbit will catch sunlight and beam it to areas that are in Earth's shadow.  

A little bit of background information. This concept of redirecting light is far from new. This model of generating energy was originally justified by the German physicist Hermann Oberth. He proposed using giant space mirrors to illuminate the Earth. Roughly 70 years later, this idea was practically implemented by Russia, which conducted the "Znamya-2" space experiment in 1993, deploying a 20-meter mirror in orbit. However, due to the weak technologies of that time, they never achieved a successful result; the reflected light from those mirrors was barely noticeable to the human eye.  

Reflect Orbital, on the other hand, plans to launch a satellite with a surface area of 160 square meters. And yes, if you count by area, Znamya-2 won in size but lost in accuracy. The Russian mirror, with an area of 314 square meters, merely scattered a faint light across the Earth. Reflect Orbital, with its smaller area of 160 square meters, bets on digital precision: the satellite focuses the beams into a concentrated spotlight just 5 km wide and aims precisely at solar power plants.  

And it’s worth remembering that Reflect Orbital is not a charity providing free light; this startup plans to make money through direct cooperation with solar power plants. This concept will actually have a place in today's energy sector because the main problem with electricity, as energy experts often call it, is the "duck curve." This simply happens when energy generation drops exactly when people return home meaning in the evening and the demand for electricity spikes sharply, causing market prices to skyrocket to the maximum. Meanwhile, Reflect Orbital satellites will illuminate solar panels in the evening and morning.  

In turn, solar power plant owners will be able to:

• Generate energy during peak demand hours and sell it at the highest tariffs ( yes, at first glance, it might seem that this is only beneficial for commercial business, but there are advantages for regular people too );
• And rely less on expensive industrial battery systems, which are currently bought to store daytime energy but sit idle for most of the day.

But despite such ambitions and I believe this is a genuinely promising project it faces a harsh reality in the form of SpaceX, regulatory bodies, and international space law to boot. As scientists from the University of Glasgow report, such a space system is simply not financially viable and will only become profitable when the cost of launching cargo falls at least threefold. And since SpaceX's Starship is responsible for the successful and cheap launch of rockets into orbit, the success of Reflect Orbital will fully depend on cheaper launch vehicles from Elon Musk. Well, for astronomers, the main ground for disqualifying this project is that such mirrors could create light pollution. This, in turn, will make stargazing from Earth almost impossible, because for this business model to work, at least 400 combined light beams must operate in the sky simultaneously.  

And by the way, the founder Ben Nowak openly admits that regulatory bodies and international space law could simply block or ban the company's activities due to environmental and scientific risks.  

Be that as it may, the future belongs to such crazy ideas. Even if Reflect Orbital doesn't take off, they will definitely push technology forward. Personally, I think that dealing with regulators and astronomers will be much harder for them than launching the mirrors themselves into orbit. Hopefully, they will find a middle ground. And as the saying goes, time will tell.

Thank you for taking the time to read my writing. Have a great day !!