Two satellite companies have filed with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch new satellites that will be devastating to the night sky.  SpaceX filed for one million “AI data centers”, and Reflect Orbital filed to launch a giant mirror into space.  The comment period is now open, and I strongly urge anyone who is able to submit a comment, as this is the only opportunity for anyone in the world to officially protest these proposed satellites.

Reflect Orbital (RO) is a small US-based company wants customers to pay them to reflect beams of sunlight down from orbit.  This is called “sunlight as a service.”  Their initial plan is for each beam to be several times as bright as the full moon and at least 5 km in diameter on the ground.  Due to the high speed needed to orbit Earth, each satellite will shine on one point for only a few minutes at most (Reflect Orbital says 4 minutes). If the mirrors cannot be stowed between pointings every 4 minutes, they will sweep across the ground as they move between one target and the next. At their proposed size, a single RO satellite is orders-of-magnitude too faint to power a solar panel on the ground, thus many would be required to power solar panels. RO has applied to the FCC for their first satellite launch in mid-2026, stating they plan to launch thousands of these satellites.

Although the ground illumination from the first satellite will be much fainter than the Sun’s, looking at the satellite with binoculars or a telescope could actually damage your eyes, similar to looking at a partial solar eclipse. Beams of light sweeping across the sky at night can cause problems for pilots and drivers. It has the potential to be a substantial distraction, and risks disrupting night vision, particularly with multiple beams. This could be risky around airports and could lead to accidents, similar to laser strikes on aircraft. Having thousands of RO satellites in orbit would lead to frequent bright flashes all over the sky for any observer on the ground.  Even millisecond flashes of light at night have been shown to disrupt human circadian rhythms.  Exposure to artificial light at night is linked to increased risks of some types of cancer.

Astronomy requires dark skies to see faint celestial objects. Due to scattering of light along the beam, anytime an RO satellite is above the horizon, it would disrupt any ground-based optical astronomy telescopes in the area. Similar to astronomical observing with a full moon in the sky, it would restrict  observations to only the very brightest handful of stars and planets.  This would cause the vast majority of astronomy research to be impossible while one or more of these satellites is above the horizon. Directly shining the beam onto a large telescope (anywhere within 5km of a large telescope facility) could damage sensitive research telescope camera equipment, which are calibrated to study faint celestial objects.

All life on Earth – including humans, migrating birds, pollinating insects, plankton in the oceans – depends on the natural day-night cycle of light and darkness.  Many hundreds of scientific studies document the importance to ecosystems and agricultural crops of protecting that natural cycle. Bird migrations, pollination, plant growth, and animal behaviors could all be disrupted by reflected sunlight from orbit.

“Sunlight as a service” requires huge mirrors in orbit, which would increase the likelihood of collisions between satellites. Large reflector cross-sections also mean a much higher collision risk from micrometeorites and non-trackable orbital debris.  Using typical rates at 625km altitude (the orbit RO proposes to use), such reflectors could expect hundreds of micrometeorite and debris impacts each year, quickly degrading the reflector and creating more diffuse and larger beams. Loss of control could lead to tumbling, causing erratic, incredibly bright flashes in the sky.

SpaceX has applied to the FCC for one million “AI data center” satellites. There are currently no functioning “AI data center” satellites in orbit, and there remain likely insurmountable technical challenges like heat dissipation, radiation effects on electronics, and micrometeorite/debris impacts before this is a viable technology. This is completely untested technology, with unclear benefits, and huge costs that would be placed upon many different communities and environments.

If the one million satellites are disposed of in Earth’s atmosphere like Starlink satellites are now, with 5 year lifetimes, that would be one satellite reentry every 3 minutes. This would be approximately two thousand times the natural infall rate of aluminum from meteoroids, and could cause catastrophic changes in the atmosphere, including ozone depletion. If they do not burn up completely, they will hit the ground. The current expected casualty risk for megaconstellations is a 40% chance of one or more casualties every 5 years. If they are disposed of in “heliocentric orbits”, they will require a large amount of extra fuel to leave Earth’s gravity well, and will pose collision risks to spacecraft travelling to the moon. Additionally, they are likely to hit the Earth in the future.

Preliminary simulations by astronomers based on Starlink brightnesses suggest this megaconstellation would result in many thousands of satellites easily visible to the unaided eye crawling in grids across the sky every night, from the entire surface of Earth. These satellites would disrupt and likely destroy every type of astronomy in every wavelength.  Tracking potentially hazardous asteroids, discovering new planets, learning about how our solar system formed, looking for alien life, all of that would become impossible.  Many billions of dollars of taxpayer money in observatories worldwide completely wasted. Naked eye stargazing, astrotourism, and cultural astronomy would be completely disrupted worldwide.

According to the CRASH Clock metric, if collision avoidance maneuvers stopped, we would have a collision in orbit within 3.8 days (using orbital data from January 2026). Many parts of orbit are already (as of May 2025) above the runaway collision threshold.  Many experts agree we are already in the early stages of Kessler Syndrome, and we need to do all we can to keep orbital operations safe for future generations.  Launching a million satellites into already-crowded Low Earth Orbit would virtually guarantee runaway collisions and destruction of a large fraction of our operating satellites.

HOW TO SUBMIT A COMMENT: The FCC has made this an incredibly convoluted process, but very clear instructions have been written up by the American Astronomical Society, and by DarkSky International:

• https://darksky.org/news/two-satellite-proposals-threaten-the-night-sky-the-window-to-act-is-now/
• https://aas.org/posts/advocacy/2026/02/how-submit-comments-satellite-applications-fcc

You don’t need to be American to submit a comment, these satellites will affect skies worldwide.  I honestly don’t think that it will change the FCC’s actions significantly, but I believe it’s extremely important to have on record that thousands of people were against this.  Thank you for your time and effort. Comments are due March 6 for SpaceX and March 9 for Reflect Orbital.

If you have any questions or want more information, please contact: Samantha Lawler (astronomy professor at University of Regina, Visiting Erskine Fellow at University of Canterbury, co-chair of the American Astronomical Society Committee on the Protection of Astronomy and the Space Environment) samantha.lawler@uregina.ca

Article added: Thursday 19 February 2026