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The article is extremely light on details, and I'm highly skeptical of the economics, though I do think its cool that they seem to be actively planning a demons

The article is extremely light on details, and I'm highly skeptical of the economics, though I do think its cool that they seem to be actively planning a demonstration mission. If nothing else, it would be neat to see the concept demonstrated in a real spacecraft. I listened to a podcast[1] a few months ago which proposed the (IMHO) more innovative idea of using giant, ultra-light foil mirrors in space to sell sunlight to existing solar farms at night. Aetherflux seems to be using the more traditional solar panels + IR laser approach, which seems harder to justify the cost of compared to batteries. [1]: https://firstprinciples.fm/episodes/8-ben-nowack-selling-sunlight-to-solar-farms-after-dark https://firstprinciples.fm/episodes/8-ben-nowack-selling-sun...

sapphicsnail 2y ago
> I listened to a podcast[1] a few months ago which proposed the (IMHO) more innovative idea of using giant, ultra-light foil mirrors in space to sell sunlight to existing solar farms at night. What would that look like from Earth? I can't imagine star-gazing with a giant mirror shining down on me.
- Ajedi32 2y ago
  I think the idea is it would look a bit like daylight, but only if you're in the area being lit (e.g. standing next to the solar farm), otherwise you wouldn't see it at all. But in practice, I'm not sure. I could imagine light leakage being an issue.
  - euroderf 2y ago
    I can see where it might overturn some predator-predatee ecosystems.
    - fsckboy 2y ago
      predator-prey
      - euroderf 2y ago
        'twas a brain fart
kspacewalk2 2y ago
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] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkjyeI0ykGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkjyeI0ykGM
- Ajedi32 2y ago
  Yeah that looks pretty bad. I'm trying to figure out if something got lost in translation or if Reflect Orbital is just running an outright scam. It's pretty clear a 10m X 10m square can't transmit 200W/sqm to a 3km area. So either those figures were for a different version of the product (like maybe an array of hundreds or thousands of these cubesats all working in concert?) or he's just flat out lying about some very important figures.
  - Ajedi32 2y ago
    So in case anyone cares, I re-watched the podcast and I'm leaning towards something getting lost in translation (or, more uncharitably, Ben being misleading about what he was describing in order to make the company look better than it is). At 47:42 he says: > So serving energy customers is kind of like the end state, you know, that, that makes sense when you're launching like, you know, full Falcon Heavies full of full of vehicles. Implying he knows you're not getting 200W/m^2 with only a single 10m x 10m 16u cubesat. He says for single satellites their short term goal is to be an alternative for street lights in undeveloped areas, which requires much less power per unit area. And at 1:11:57: > And you can also optimize like different curves of customer saturation, you know, so like initially, you're not going to have as many customers excited to buy, you know, a couple minutes of sunlight that's not very bright. But later down the line you're going to have a lot of people who are very interested in buying a lot of sunlight. Um, you know, at the kind of point where we're, you know, a couple hundred Watts per square meter for, for quite a while. So it sounds like 200W/m^2 is a long term goal, not something they're planning to have right away with the 100m^2 satellites. Would be interesting to run the numbers and find out exactly what would be needed for 200W/m^2 in the maximally bright part of the illuminated area, in terms of the size and number of satellites required.
ctoth 2y ago
You write large orbital mirror for redirecting sunlight to solar farms I read space-based magnifying glass to cook any spot on the ground. Without running the numbers I'm not sure my intuition holds, does it?
dabbz 2y ago
haha light on details

sapphicsnail 2y ago

> I listened to a podcast[1] a few months ago which proposed the (IMHO) more innovative idea of using giant, ultra-light foil mirrors in space to sell sunlight to existing solar farms at night. What would that look like from Earth? I can't imagine star-gazing with a giant mirror shining down on me.

Ajedi32 2y ago
I think the idea is it would look a bit like daylight, but only if you're in the area being lit (e.g. standing next to the solar farm), otherwise you wouldn't see it at all. But in practice, I'm not sure. I could imagine light leakage being an issue.
- euroderf 2y ago
  I can see where it might overturn some predator-predatee ecosystems.
  - fsckboy 2y ago
    predator-prey
    - euroderf 2y ago
      'twas a brain fart

kspacewalk2 2y ago

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] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkjyeI0ykGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkjyeI0ykGM

Ajedi32 2y ago
Yeah that looks pretty bad. I'm trying to figure out if something got lost in translation or if Reflect Orbital is just running an outright scam. It's pretty clear a 10m X 10m square can't transmit 200W/sqm to a 3km area. So either those figures were for a different version of the product (like maybe an array of hundreds or thousands of these cubesats all working in concert?) or he's just flat out lying about some very important figures.
- Ajedi32 2y ago
  So in case anyone cares, I re-watched the podcast and I'm leaning towards something getting lost in translation (or, more uncharitably, Ben being misleading about what he was describing in order to make the company look better than it is). At 47:42 he says: > So serving energy customers is kind of like the end state, you know, that, that makes sense when you're launching like, you know, full Falcon Heavies full of full of vehicles. Implying he knows you're not getting 200W/m^2 with only a single 10m x 10m 16u cubesat. He says for single satellites their short term goal is to be an alternative for street lights in undeveloped areas, which requires much less power per unit area. And at 1:11:57: > And you can also optimize like different curves of customer saturation, you know, so like initially, you're not going to have as many customers excited to buy, you know, a couple minutes of sunlight that's not very bright. But later down the line you're going to have a lot of people who are very interested in buying a lot of sunlight. Um, you know, at the kind of point where we're, you know, a couple hundred Watts per square meter for, for quite a while. So it sounds like 200W/m^2 is a long term goal, not something they're planning to have right away with the 100m^2 satellites. Would be interesting to run the numbers and find out exactly what would be needed for 200W/m^2 in the maximally bright part of the illuminated area, in terms of the size and number of satellites required.

ctoth 2y ago

You write large orbital mirror for redirecting sunlight to solar farms I read space-based magnifying glass to cook any spot on the ground. Without running the numbers I'm not sure my intuition holds, does it?

dabbz 2y ago

haha light on details