Reflect Orbital is testing whether sunlight can become a service after sunset. The California startup has received permission from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to test a satellite carrying an 18-metre-wide mirror. Its commercial proposition is striking: direct sunlight onto selected areas at night, potentially supplying illumination or extending the operating window for solar farms. The business case will depend on whether the light can be delivered reliably and whether customers value it enough to cover the cost and operational risks.
A paid service built around reflected sunlight
Reflect Orbital plans to place its Eärendil-1 demonstration satellite in low Earth orbit before the end of 2026, according to the company’s stated schedule. In May 2025, it raised $20 million in Series A funding to advance development. The FCC described the project as a potential way to advance U.S. leadership in space, while granting permission for a test intended to generate data about the technology.
Once deployed, the satellite’s thin-film reflector would redirect sunlight toward Earth’s night side. Reflect Orbital says it wants to illuminate areas between 5 and 6 kilometres wide on demand, with brightness adjustable from the level of a full Moon to that of full noon. The company has discussed charging up to $5,000 an hour for the service.
That price frames the central commercial question. Reflect Orbital is proposing a new source of light that would arrive from orbit, rather than from an existing grid connection or local generation. The company has identified possible customers in municipalities seeking street lighting without electricity and solar farms seeking light after dark. Those uses would require customers to see enough value in the service to pay for each hour of illumination. The source material does not provide projected costs, customer commitments, or expected operating frequency, so the economics remain unproven.
The pilot is therefore more than a demonstration of whether a mirror can reflect sunlight onto a target. Reflect Orbital co-founder and CEO Ben Nowack says the project will let the company collect data and assess whether its safeguards can control the light beams. He said, “We’re grateful to the FCC for recognising the importance of testing novel technologies in space.” That test could help establish whether the service can meet its intended operating parameters, though it won’t answer every question raised by a larger fleet.
Scientific concerns put deployment scale in focus
More than 1,800 comments were submitted to the FCC about the satellite. The objections focus on possible effects from added nighttime light, including interference with astronomical observations, risks of pilots being flash-blinded, and disruption to the biological rhythms of people, animals, and plants. Scientists have also raised concerns about nocturnal migration, seasonal plant cycles, and marine phytoplankton rhythms that support ocean food webs.
Roohi Dalal, director of public policy at the American Astronomical Society, said the proposed activity would affect the Earth environment, including “human health, agriculture and wildlife, in addition to astronomy.” That concern extends beyond whether one satellite’s beam can be controlled. A service designed to illuminate large areas at night could affect multiple systems that rely on natural darkness, even if its brightness and timing are adjustable.
Presidents of four international scientific societies, representing around 2,500 researchers from more than 30 countries, sent letters to the FCC asking for a full environmental review and limits on satellite reflectivity and cumulative night-sky brightness. Charalambos Kyriacou, president of the European Biological Rhythms Society, warned that the implications could reach food security. “Plants need the night. You can’t just get rid of it,” he said.
The FCC stated that space is not subject to the same environmental laws as Earth. That position does not settle the scientific debate or establish how a large operational network would affect communities and ecosystems. For the company, evidence from the pilot will matter commercially as well as technically: public concerns could shape how customers, researchers, and other stakeholders assess the service’s acceptable uses.
Expansion plans multiply the stakes
Reflect Orbital has outlined a much larger ambition if its pilot succeeds: 1,000 mirror satellites by 2028 and 50,000 by 2035. Future mirrors could measure up to 55 metres across, compared with the 18-metre reflector planned for the demonstration. The European Southern Observatory estimates that a single reflected sunbeam would appear about four times brighter than the full Moon in the illuminated area.
Those figures make the difference between a controlled test and a scaled service central to the debate. The first satellite is intended to test the concept and its safeguards. A fleet numbering in the thousands would introduce a different scale of activity, with many potential beams and cumulative brightness becoming part of the discussion. The scientific societies’ request for limits on total night-sky brightness speaks directly to that distinction.
Environmental costs also sit on both sides of the proposal. Reflect Orbital presents the mirrors as a way to provide clean energy or light, but getting satellites into orbit requires rocket launches, and environmentalists point to the associated carbon emissions. The source material gives no emissions estimate or comparison with alternative energy and lighting systems. Without those figures, the claim of a clean service remains difficult to weigh against its launch requirements.
A broader race to move energy-intensive activity into orbit
Reflect Orbital is part of a wider effort to use satellites to support energy-intensive applications. SpaceX has proposed launching as many as 1 million satellites for an orbital computing network powered by solar energy. The company says space-based data centres could reduce the energy and cooling demands of terrestrial facilities and provide computing capacity for “billions of users globally.” Those are company claims, and the proposal is distinct from Reflect Orbital’s plan to redirect sunlight to Earth.
SpaceX’s existing Starlink network, with nearly 10,000 satellites, has faced criticism over congestion in space. In January, Elon Musk responded on X: “The satellites will actually be so far apart that it will be hard to see from one to another. Space is so vast as to be beyond comprehension.” The comparison highlights a common feature of these plans: a project can begin with a limited demonstration while its commercial vision depends on a much larger constellation.
For Reflect Orbital, the next meaningful evidence will come from the demonstration itself: whether the satellite can direct light as intended, whether safeguards can control its output, and whether the proposed service attracts paying customers. Yet technical performance alone won’t resolve questions about night-sky brightness, biological effects, or launch emissions. The company’s plans make those questions more consequential as the proposed fleet grows. The commercial opportunity is clear enough to test; its value will depend on showing that the service works at a price customers will pay and at a scale that can be responsibly managed.