EEVblog 1637: Solar Freakin' Space Mirrors! - Reflect Orbital DEBUNKED
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN cites it as a debunking whenever the space mirror startup comes up, as a TL;DW that the design is impractical.
What it is
EEVblog's Dave Jones critiques Reflect Orbital's plan to sell sunlight to solar farms after dark using orbital mirrors. He walks through the numbers to show the idea does not work out.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2024 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Critical DemocracyFTW2 · 2024-10 · on “Reflecting sunlight from space to power solar farms at night”
This has long been debunked e.g. by Thunderf00t ( [LINK] ) and EEVblog ( [this video] ) It comes as no surprise this won't work when you imagine 1) where you have to put the mirrors: either in low orbit so as to keep light dispersion low and the apparent mirror size from the ground big—but now you have the problem that the mirrors move with high speed relative to the ground, and the time frame where you can still reflect light before entering into Earth's shadow is very short. Or you put them into a higher orbit so they can reflect light for a longer time, but now the light spot that arrives on the ground is even more dispersed 2) how big these mirrors can practically become, and how little light
Critical kspacewalk2 · 2024-10 · on “Solar power from space? it might happen in a couple of years”
Found a rather... skeptical take (I'd argue it's more of a takedown)[0]. A bit crazy how far off the math is from viability, for a company that someone actually invested money in. Impressive salesmanship though. [0] [this video]
Critical sxp · 2025-02 · on “Reflect Orbital: Sunlight after dark using a constellation of spatial reflectors”
YT video going into the math and physics involved: [this video] TL;DW: not practical in it's current design.
Critical reader9274 · 2026-07 · on “FCC Approves Test of Space Mirror to Light Night Sky Despite Outcry”
First, they don't exist and 10k of them will never exist. Second, nothing would happen, the power will be minuscule and last for a very short time focused on such a small patch. see: [this video]