Who should be allowed to decide?
An American start-up has ordered two Indian rocket launches to test a service no one has sold before: sunlight at night.
The California-based company Reflect Orbital plans to place giant mirrors in low orbit around the Earth and use them to direct reflected sunlight down towards selected places on the ground.
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The company will sell space-based lighting for a wide range of purposes – from keeping solar parks producing energy after sunset, to search and rescue operations. Their first orbital demonstrator, Eärendil-1, will carry an 18 x 18 meter mirror.
Using room mirrors to deliver useful lighting requires overcoming formidable engineering challenges. But there’s another pressing question: Who should decide where sunlight redirected from space is allowed to hit the ground?
The light does not stop at the edge of the beam
You might think that a space mirror could illuminate a customer’s solar park or rescue site – leaving everything else untouched. It doesn’t quite work that way, because the Earth’s atmosphere doesn’t respect sharp boundaries.
A peer-reviewed scientific study published in August modeled what happens when reflected sunlight passes through our atmosphere. Molecules and aerosols scatter some of the light beam across the surrounding sky. Light that reaches the ground is reflected upwards and then scattered again.
This means that the light can affect a much larger area than intended. For a proposed future mirror of 54 meters, the study’s authors found that the resulting celestial glow can remain significantly well beyond the target area. 14 kilometers from the beam, it can be brighter than a full moon over most of the sky. Even 34 kilometers away, the sky glow against the beam can still be brighter than during a full moon.
These are predictions from a model, not measurements from real room mirrors. Yet they uncover the unresolved regulatory problem: The people who are affected may not have ordered the light.
This is of course important for astronomers – but also more generally. Reflected light affects the natural darkness over an area that can be much larger than what the customer actually pays for.
In response to questions from The Conversation, a spokesperson for Reflect Orbital wrote, “Most people and most places will never see this light. Customers will need permits, local government approval, and Know Your Customer compliance to receive the service. Each service will require multi-level approval—and if people don’t want the light, they won’t get it.”
So who regulates the light?
The first regulatory test has already revealed an important technical gap.
In July, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted Reflect Orbital permission to deploy and operate Eärendil-1. But the license only covers radio communications – specifically, the use of specific frequencies for satellite telemetry and control.
Astronomers asked the FCC to introduce measures to limit optical effects. The commission refused, concluding that astronomy was outside the scope of their regulations.
The American Astronomical Society and others have since challenged that decision.
Now India comes into the picture
Reflect Orbital’s new agreement with India’s Skyroot Aerospace includes two dedicated launches, with the Vikram-1 rocket and the under development Vikram-1U.
This means that India may now have to confront the issue the FCC largely avoided. A launch from India requires authorization through the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre, IN-SPACe.
Their regulations cover launch safety, registration, and environmental impact. It specifically requires limiting negative environmental effects (on Earth or in space), as well as undesirable changes in the atmosphere.
As yet, there is no publicly available authorization showing how IN-SPACe will handle intentionally reflected light.
It’s unclear which jurisdiction should regulate the space mirror. Reflect Orbital is American. Skyroot and launch site are Indian. The spacecraft can illuminate territory in a third country. And atmospheric dispersion means its effects can extend well beyond its intended target area.
Neither U.S. nor Indian regulators have so far addressed light from space. That leaves questions that extend beyond the launch permit.
If a commercial operator wants to light up a place in another country, does the government there have to approve it? What about a neighborhood or observatory that is affected by scattered light? And if the effects cross national borders, what regulator can require a space mirror operator to change its behavior?
These questions become much more difficult if left to reflected sunlight becomes a commercial service, rather than an experiment.
From experiment to service
None of this means that Reflect Orbital should necessarily be prevented from demonstrating its technology. In fact, Eärendil-1 can provide regulators with real data: measurements of brightness, atmospheric dispersion, and how accurately reflected light can be controlled.
Reflect Orbital says it will continue to work with astronomers, communities and regulators as it scales up its tests.
In the meantime, authorities must decide who is allowed to turn on the lights – and who is allowed to protest when some of it inevitably travels outside the customer’s fence.
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