Reflect Orbital: Engineering marvel or just smoke and mirrors?
20 January 2026
I've been a little slow to pick up on this one, but there's a company in the US, Reflect Orbital, that is offering services based on having mirrors in space. Given that the company's previous name was Tons of Mirrors, it would seem that their aim is likely to be to imitate Elon Musk's Starlink by launching thousands of mirrors into low-earth orbit, and pointing them back at earth. One article reports that the company plans to have 4,000 satellites in orbit by 2030, with the eventual aim of launching a quarter of a million satellites.