Are We About to Premanently Scar the Night Sky With One Million AI Satellite and 50,000 Space Mirrors?

If you thought the current crop of satellite megaconstellations was bad, you’re going to be horribly disappointed by new proposals from both SpaceX and a company called Reflect Orbital. Their combined plans would fundamentally alter the night sky as we know it, and the global astronomical community is sounding the alarm - most notably letters from the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) strongly opposing the plan, which currently sits with America’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for approval.

There are actually two separate plans the FCC is considering. SpaceX has submitted one to launch one million satellites to low Earth orbit. You read that right - one million. That multiple orders of magnitude beyond the ten thousand it originally thought it would need to complete its communication satellites. So what will these hundreds of thousands of additional satellites be doing in space? This might not come as a surprise given the recent efforts by Elon Musk to merge SpaceX with xAI, but they’d be acting as data centers for AI.

According to estimates, even with the dark coating that SpaceX has specifically developed to dampen the reflectivity of their satellites, thousands of the satellites will still be visible to the naked eye at any given time. Estimates from the ESO’s Very Large Telescope calculate that the VLT could lose 10% of its total amount of data due to satellite trails. That data is unrecoverable, and could be blocking transient phenomena like supernovae or a quick moving Near-Earth Object (NEO).

Fraser talks about how SpaceX is fighting light pollution - with paint.

Reflect Orbital, a less well known company, has perhaps an even more damaging plan to the night sky. It wants to launch 50,000 mirrors to intentionally reflect sunlight to a target area on Earth. You read that correctly - they want to essentially eliminate night.

Technically their goal is to provide on-demand commercial sunlight after dark. According to the RAS, the beam from each orbiting satellite would be four times brighter than the full Moon. But photons don’t behave nicely, and the Earth’s atmosphere is notorious for scattering them, so the light pollution from these beams coming down from space would be catastrophic for observational astronomy. According to calculations from the RAS, Reflect Orbital’s plans would make the whole night sky about 3-4 times brighter than its natural state.

This would be a problem not just for astronomy, but also for the natural order. Biologists warn that artificial light at night collapses nocturnal ecosystems, affecting everything from bird migration to insect populations. And there’s been plenty of studies showcasing how humans sleeping in the dark benefit more than those who sleep in the light.

Fraser talks about how many satellites we can actually launch into orbit

Dr. Robert Massey, Deputy Executive Director at the RAS, didn’t mince words when talking about the FCC filings. “These proposals would not only have a disastrous impact on the science of astronomy, they would also hinder the right of everybody on Earth to enjoy the night sky. That is unacceptable.” Dr. Massey said. “The stars above us are a valued part of our human heritage - deploying more than one million exceptionally bright satellites would utterly destroy this and permanently scar the natural landscape. We hope the FCC wholeheartedly rejects the plans.”

But there’s a sad fact of the reality of the politics of the situation - the RAS and ESO aren’t American, being British and European respectively. Despite their prominence in the astronomical community, they have little to no power to sway a group of American regulators who answer to the American government, and therefore the American people. The IAU, on the other hand, does have a presence in America, but so far its regulatory efforts to minimize the impact of development on the night sky haven’t been particularly effective.

It remains to be seen whether these new proposals will be enacted or not. Their best bet in combating them might be the economics itself. While SpaceX is already a multi-billion dollar company that will soon host its own IPO, the economics of hosting data centers in space is still untested territory. Reflect Orbital, on the other hand, is still a relatively new entrant to the game, and the market demand for their daylight-as-a-service model remains untested as well.

But for now, it will be up to American regulators to decide the fate of the night sky. If you think you have any sway over them at all, and if you’re worried about the impact this will have on astronomy and the well-being of the planet more generally, you might want to add your voice to the chorus sounding against these plans.

Learn More:

RAS - SpaceX and Reflect Orbital plans would 'permanently scar' night sky

UT - Light Pollution is Out of Control

UT - Satellite Constellations Are Too Bright, Threatening Astronomy and Our Night Sky

UT - Satellites Have Brightened the Skies by About 10% Across the Entire Planet