FCC erteilt Genehmigung für sonnenreflektierenden Weltraumspiegel, der von Astronomen vielfach kritisiert wurde – Engadget

>*The AAS also says the satellite’s reflection could cause eye damage to amateur astronomers and the „temporary flash blinding of pilots and drivers.“ Reflect Orbital itself has even acknowledged the risk of eye damage „if someone were to view Earendil-1 through a telescope with an aperture larger than 12 inches,“ according to the AAS.*

12 inch Dobsonians are perfectly available to hobby astronomers.
They’re likely „conservative“ with that statement, so 8 inch could be harmful too.

Why does an American organisation get to make decisions that affect the entire planet?

Isn’t there some kind of international giverning body for this kind of thing?

What’s the ultimate goal of this demonstration? Why would sunlight at night be needed?

How does the (U.S) Federal Communications Commission decide what is to go into orbit around the Earth?

Ah, just what we needed, *more* solar energy being directed to earth. I know it’s negligible, but still, I’d been expecting more of the opposite to come first, trying to shade the planet a bit

Didn’t anyone watch Futurama?

I think I saw a James Bond movie about this

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

|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|[FCC](/r/Space/comments/1uthxa4/stub/owxnwaa „Last usage“)|Federal Communications Commission|
| |(Iron/steel) [Face-Centered Cubic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_iron) crystalline structure|
|[GEO](/r/Space/comments/1uthxa4/stub/owyvldx „Last usage“)|Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1uthxa4/stub/owxxm55 „Last usage“)|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[SAR](/r/Space/comments/1uthxa4/stub/owxgo1z „Last usage“)|Synthetic Aperture Radar (increasing resolution with parallax)|

|Jargon|Definition|
|——-|———|—|
|[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/1uthxa4/stub/owwf6mu „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/1utkupn)^( has 3 acronyms.)
^([Thread #12567 for this sub, first seen 11th Jul 2026, 17:54])
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1. Mirrors can be curved and could, in theory, be closer to the sun.  This could be useful for solar power because it’s not only a passive way to direct solar energy down but to concentrate it before it even arrives.  These satellites are only intended for low orbit, however.

2. Intended applications are search-and-rescue and solar power at present.

3. They can control where it points.  It sounds like these do concentrate (focus) the light somewhat, as there is a risk of eye damage if an astronomer were to use a large telescope by eye.

4. Seems like they’re focused (ugh) on night time use at present, but it also seems like they’re something of an experiment testing out the usefulness.

Sure thing, lets heat up the planet even more!

I think this video pretty much summarizes the inpracticality of using space based mirrors to power solar power plants: https://youtu.be/lkjyeI0ykGM?t=746&is=TNp8FgJFoAyQLkRa

They’re naming it Eärendil, which is infuriating if you read what Tolkien wrote, and how he felt about „progress“

„It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know“ -Gandalf

„…Labour-saving machinery only creates endless and worse labour…our devices not only fail of their desire but turn to new and horrible evil.“ -Tolkien, in a letter to his son Michael