Picture a world where 3 a.m. glows — no moon, no explanation — just an eerie, unnatural light falling from above. Much brighter than a full moon, intruding upon darkness.You are not entering the Twilight Zone, but our new reality.
Reflect Orbital is a California based company developing a system of satellites with large deployable mirrors to reflect sunlight onto the earth at night.Their goal is to provide “sunlight on demand” for applications like extending solar power generation after sunset, illuminating disaster zones, supporting remote operations, enhancing agricultural yields and providing unforgettable night time experiences.Each satellite would illuminate a target area up to 5 kilometers wide, with light intensities ranging from 0.8-2.3 lux, several times brighter than a full moon.
The first prototype is a 59 foot long satellite with a 60 foot wide mirror designed to test the concept in low Earth orbit.(LEO).Low Earth orbit refers to the altitude range where satellites orbit Earth, requiring a tangential (or sideways) velocity of about 7.8 km/s to remain in orbit. Thousands of satellites are projected for sustained coverage, with 250,000 estimated for global reach.
Both Russia and Japan have experimented with orbital illumination, but Reflect Orbital is the first company seeking a commercial license — and that changes the stakes entirely.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory — now operational on Cerro Pachón — is designed to detect objects 20 million times fainter than the unaided eye, mapping dark matter across 2.6 billion galaxies. Orbital illumination at commercial scale would blind humanity’s most powerful eye to the universe it was built to see.It will be like having the full moon shining every night — and that will be devastating to astronomy. (Siegfried Eggl, IAU Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky, 2025 ) A single satellite, when viewed through a telescope, could cause permanent eye damage.
Each 18-meter mirror presents a vast micrometeorite cross-section. Fragmentation of even one at orbital velocity seeds millions of un-trackable fragments, accelerating the Kessler cascade.The Kessler Effect, also known as the Kessler Syndrome, is a theoretical scenario proposed in 1978 by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler and Burton G. Cour-Palais. It describes a situation in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) becomes so high that collisions between them trigger a chain reaction—each collision generating more debris, which in turn increases the likelihood of further collisions. This cascading effect could render certain orbital regions unusable for satellites and space missions.
Life on our planet evolved over two billion years ago with melatonin-dependent circadian clocks that synchronize our biology with our planet’s 24 hour rotation of light and dark.A 2021 meta-analysis in Nature Ecology & Evolution identified artificial light at night (ALAN) as one of the most pervasive yet understudied ecological stressors on Earth — and that was before anyone proposed illuminating the night sky with orbital mirrors.
The night sky is not ours to redesign. Every organism on Earth — from coral reefs to the microbes in your gut — evolved circadian rhythms at the cellular level in response to one constant: the reliable rotational return of darkness. Remove that constant, and we trigger a cascade of events that evolution never prepared any living system to survive.
DarkSky International recently released a statement opposing Reflect Orbital’s proposal and calls upon the FCC to require full environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) before any orbital illumination license is granted.
The Western Slope Dark Sky Coalition is where passion becomes power and power guides policy.We invite you to join our mission to protect and defend the birthright of all living systems on this planet...our celestial night sky.
The poet Dylan Thomas wrote his famous 1947 poem: “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”He never could have predicted that in 2026orbital illumination would require us to rage, rage against the dying of the night.
Music written and produced by Kenny Mihelich. Western Slope Skies is produced by the Colorado Mesa University Astronomy Club, the Western Slope Dark Sky Coalition, and KVNF Community Radio. This feature is written and shared by Kate Fedack.
REFERENCES
Reflect Orbital FCC filing and technical overview. Reflect Orbital, 2025. reflectorbital.com
Space.com coverage of Reflect Orbital constellation projections, Oct 2025.
Aulsebrook et al. “ALAN consistently impacts avian physiology.” bioRxiv, Oct 2025. doi:10.1101/2025.10.17.683022
Tyson, J.A. et al. “Satellite constellation impacts on Rubin LSST.” Nature 637, 2025. doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09759-5
Kessler, D.J. & Cour-Palais, B.G. “Collision frequency of artificial satellites.” JGR 83(A6):2637–2646, 1978. doi:10.1029/JA083iA06p02637
Stanton, D.L. & Cowart, J.R. “ALAN and circadian biology of marine animals.” Front. Mar. Sci. 11:1372889, 2024.
Sanders, D. et al. “A meta-analysis of biological impacts of artificial light at night.” Nature Ecology & Evolution 5, 74–81 (2021).doi:10.1038/s41559-020-01322-x
Touitou, Y., Reinberg, A., Touitou, D. “Light at night, melatonin, and circadiandisruption.” Life Sci. 173:94–106, 2017. PMID: 28214594 · IARC Group 2A, Monograph 124, 2019.