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    Die USA genehmigen den Start eines Spiegelsatelliten, der Sonnenlicht reflektieren und die Erde nachts beleuchten kann

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    1. DNathanHilliard on

      Cool! I can’t wait to see our nighttime sky full of corporate logos. It’s like a cyberpunk fantasy come true.

    3. kookomagoo on

      Wow. What a profoundly stupid idea. Talk a out light pollution. This cannot be good for animals, plants or people.we need a night cycle.

    4. tubbis9001 on

      Maybe something like this has some limited scientific value, but you would need huge *kilometer sized* mirrors to see any increases in brightness with the naked eye, let alone be bright enough for solar panels.

    5. shugo7 on

      There’s an episode of Futurama and other movies that specifically shows us why this is a bad idea

    6. Soap_Mctavish101 on

      Those people are so preoccupied with whether or not they could they didn’t stop to think if they should.

    7. ArtOfWarfare on

      I’m curious what the Venn diagram looks like for people who like vs hate this idea and like vs hate beaming solar power from space to earth. Since they’re very nearly the same idea.

      The key difference I see, and maybe I’m just mistaken, is that with beaming solar power from space to earth you switch the wavelengths being emitted from several wavelengths that get absorbed by earths atmosphere normally and convert them all to infrared, which does a better job penetrating the atmosphere and solar panels are more efficient at converting to power (on the terrestrial side.)

      IDK, will the space mirrors be adjusting the wavelengths of what they beam down to earth vs what they receive from the sun? If so, I’d say it’s the exact same idea.

    8. Necessary_Bike3227 on

      Wouldn’t this heat up the planet, during its natural cooling phase?

    10. Teen_Wolf_of_Wall_St on

      So Trump is good with solar power and renewables as long as its awful and destroys a bunch of other things like nocturnal ecosystems?

    12. CorineSye on

      I had the same uneasy feeling reading this, honestly. I grew up where dark skies mattered, and even a little extra glare at night would bug me way more than people think.

    13. Sun-Anvil on

      „WIRED wrote about Reflect Orbital’s giant mirror in September 2024, when the project was still in its early stages: “The ambitious goal of the Santa Monica, California–based startup is to ensure a continuous supply of light for large solar panel installations, allowing them to generate electricity even at night and thereby overcoming one of the main limitations of this renewable energy source.” Two years later, the Trump administration has given the green light to this provider of “on-demand” sunlight.“

      [Here is Reflect Orbital website and team. Some formally SpaceX Engineers](https://www.reflectorbital.com/team)

    14. guaztronaut on

      I hope I’m fucking dead before I see that thing irl. I don’t want to be a part of the human species anymore.

    17. ChaosOnion on

      > “Reflect Orbital is earning the right to operate and expand. That means demonstrating that reflected sunlight can be precisely controlled, used only where appropriate, limited in brightness and duration, and coordinated with affected communities and scientific institutions. It means measuring real-world impacts rather than relying on assumptions. And it means being willing to change course if the evidence does not support deployment.”

      * Who’s determining when and where appropriate?

      * Who’s controlling brightness and duration? (If people can’t be bothered to regulate LED headlights, what makes you think they’ll regulate this?)

      * Who’s arbitrating between parties?

      * Who’s measuring impacts and determining if assumptions are true or false?

      * Who’s determining if the evidence supports the blah-blah-blah?

      This sounds like a bad solution in search of an imaginary problem.

    18. Notten on

      It’s as if they forgot the earth’s atmosphere with certainly scatter the light and it will be a bright spot in the night for everyone and do next to nothing foe solar because the underlying efficiency is bad. Also we dont need nearly as much power at night. This is just more space garbage.

    19. RhesusFactor on

      The FCC is responsible for regulating radio communications in the USA. They have applied for a radio license. This is not approval to launch, or endorsement of the concept.

      The US FAA reviews launch vehicles and does cursory payload reviews, unless the payload is very unusual. The FAA also coordinates interagency reviews where other stakeholders like OSC and DoD can provide comment. This appears to be an unusual payload, but the owners have not applied yet.

      The Office of Space Commerce, empowered by Space Policy Directive 2 and 5 are starting to shift the US’s laissez faire space economy to a slightly more regulated on where Mission Authorisation is handled by the DoC-OSC. This is expected to bring all these different regulatory bodies and processes into one front door, and have a bit more on-orbit behaviour regulation.

      This is not the end of night time people.

    20. blucyclone on

      Electronic artificial light overclocked the industrial revolution and created ridiculously long working days that society is still trying to undo. This is just the next stage of human exploitation.

    22. Decronym on

      Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

      |Fewer Letters|More Letters|
      |——-|———|—|
      |[DoD](/r/Space/comments/1uw6isv/stub/oxgw6pp „Last usage“)|US Department of Defense|
      |[FAA](/r/Space/comments/1uw6isv/stub/oxgw6pp „Last usage“)|Federal Aviation Administration|
      |[FCC](/r/Space/comments/1uw6isv/stub/oxhgxeb „Last usage“)|Federal Communications Commission|
      | |(Iron/steel) [Face-Centered Cubic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_iron) crystalline structure|
      |[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1uw6isv/stub/oxgta3l „Last usage“)|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
      | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|

      |Jargon|Definition|
      |——-|———|—|
      |[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/1uw6isv/stub/oxhf5h9 „Last usage“)|SpaceX’s world-wide satellite broadband constellation|

      Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.

      —————-
      ^(5 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1urugxn)^( has 40 acronyms.)
      ^([Thread #12575 for this sub, first seen 14th Jul 2026, 13:25])
      ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)

    24. Jimmy_Beam27 on

      Well this will kill their argument against solar because it „doesn’t work at night“

    25. rodrigoelp on

      And because the planet is not having issues releasing heat to outer space, why not bring a lot more solar energy down to the planet.

      It will definitely not backfire, right?

    26. Fritzo2162 on

      This is one of those things that I’m generally against because it will alter the environment, but I’m genuinely curious about what it could do. I could see this being used for solar farms to generate 24/7 power, or even focused to generate heat energy. If the beam is highly focused, I’m not sure how it would affect observations (unless it was in an area with an observatory).

    27. Pamander on

      Can someone devils advocate for this thing cause I just don’t get it at all and I am usually all for space silliness.

    28. ShoutOutTo_Caboose on

      Hmm if only there were a **natural** satellite that did that already.

    29. Realtrain on

      I just don’t get how this is cheaper or more reliable than building twice as many solar panels and battery capacity for them.

    34. crewsctrl on

      The FCC doesn’t authorize launches. The FCC authorizes communications that will be used on spacecraft. All that has been approved is the communications system. The spacecraft hasn’t been built yet. The rocket hasn’t been procured yet. The launch hasn’t been planned yet.

    35. Mister_Brevity on

      They’re definitely going to try to make it a weapon. “California won’t give up their voter data – burn LA!”

    37. NotaFTCAgent on

      Surely this will be used to justify new solar power installations in the US right? Since their whole „buh muh power at night time durrr“ argument goes out the windows; and not just used as a vanity money sink for billionaire mansion parties and yachts right?

    41. poopfilledsandwich on

      I don’t like my neighbors lights shining in my yard.
      Trump will be up there shining that mirror like a magnifying glass on all the Blue States and anyone else he thinks has betrayed him.

    42. abslte23 on

      I swear I remember Russia doing this on the 90s from what I can recall from an article in Time magazine.

      Edit: yes indeed project Znamya

    43. CessnaDude82 on

      This seems like a really inefficient way to solve solar power generation issues. Seems it might be a better use of resources to perfect it down here before we just default to giant space mirror.

    45. DazHawt on

      This is why I’ve been adamant about taking my kids dark sky camping for the past year. I want them to remember when you could see stars in the sky. 

    46. argognat on

      The lizard people need to warm up the planet as quickly as possible before they take over.
      Seriously though, remember when we were trying stop global warming instead of finding ever stupider ways of heating the planet.

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