Overview
- Reflect Orbital plans to fly steerable mirror satellites that would reflect sunlight to chosen ground sites and has U.S. permission to build a demonstration craft called Earendil-1.
- The company ran a contested ground demonstration using large floodlights on October 10 that many astronomers and rescue teams said produced glare and confirmed concerns about wide, hard-to-control illumination.
- Reflect Orbital announced an agreement with India’s Skyroot Aerospace to attempt two launches and is aiming for an orbital demonstration in the second quarter of 2027.
- Peer‑reviewed models show that atmospheric scattering can spread reflected sunlight well outside the aimed area and could, in some cases, make regions brighter than a full moon and raise overall sky brightness if scaled to thousands of satellites.
- Critics say the plan risks harming ground-based astronomy, wildlife and sleep cycles, that emergency uses may be costly or limited in benefit, and that multi‑country launch pathways and regulatory gaps will shape whether the tests proceed or are constrained.