Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/climate/fcc-space-mirror.html Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48871367 Points: 51 # Comments: 46

A start-up company has permission to try its plan to bounce solar rays onto the dark side of Earth, turning night to day for a three-mile-wide patch. The federal government has approved plans by a start-up company to test a satellite that would use a 60-foot mirror to reflect sunlight back to Earth after dark, as part of a project the company says would power solar farms, provide light for rescue workers and illuminate city streets. In a license issued on Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission gave the green light for Reflect Orbital of Hawthorne, Calif., to launch its Eärendil-1 satellite into low Earth orbit. The company plans to deploy its test satellite this year but has said it eventually wants to send as many as 50,000 big mirrors into space. The approval came despite a flood of opposition from astronomers, wildlife experts and others who say the light from the mirrors could distract airplane pilots, wreak havoc on astronomical observations and interfere with circadian rhythms, the light-and-dark cycles that help people, animals and plants know when to wake and sleep, to bloom or to migrate. “It’s terrifying to me that one country can change the night sky for everybody in the world,” said Samantha Lawler, an astronomer at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. “I need access to dark skies in order to do my research. If you’ve got giant mirrors shining down, then we’ve lost that.” In a letter to the F.C.C. sent last month, the American Astronomical Society, said the endeavor “cannot be considered to serve the public interest” and in fact would waste taxpayer dollars by wrecking the work of federally funded astronomical facilities, even as it brought untold risks to people and wildlife. “It is clear that the activities that Reflect Orbital is proposing will have an impact on the Earth environment, including on human health, agriculture and wildlife, in addition to astronomy,” Roohi Dalal, the society’s director of public policy, wrote. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.