Shpaget Posted September 4 Share Posted September 4 https://www.reflectorbital.com These guys want to put mirrors in sun-synchronous orbit to shine some extra light at dawn and dusk so solar farms can generate electricity for about two hours more per day. The proposal is a constellation of 60-ish sats with 10 m mirrors, and they count on 175 000 $ revenue per sat per year, considering the spot of light would be about 5 km wide. They fail to realize that a 10 m mirror can reflect a maximum of about 100 kW, which when spread over a 5 km wide circle gives about 5 milliwatt per square meter, not the usual 1 kW per square meter we get from direct sunlight on a clear summer day. I can not accept that they missed this fundamental calculation, and since they are fundraising. I call this an outright scam. They can't be this mistaken, it has to be deliberate fraud. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darthgently Posted September 4 Share Posted September 4 10 minutes ago, Shpaget said: https://www.reflectorbital.com These guys want to put mirrors in sun-synchronous orbit to shine some extra light at dawn and dusk so solar farms can generate electricity for about two hours more per day. The proposal is a constellation of 60-ish sats with 10 m mirrors, and they count on 175 000 $ revenue per sat per year, considering the spot of light would be about 5 km wide. They fail to realize that a 10 m mirror can reflect a maximum of about 100 kW, which when spread over a 5 km wide circle gives about 5 milliwatt per square meter, not the usual 1 kW per square meter we get from direct sunlight on a clear summer day. I can not accept that they missed this fundamental calculation, and since they are fundraising. I call this an outright scam. They can't be this mistaken, it has to be deliberate fraud. Also the astronomers concerned about Starlink and the biologists concerned about some species going insane from artificial lighting cues are going to just love this idea. And is, or is not, global warming a thing that increasing insolation would make worse? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted September 4 Share Posted September 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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