Fact-check

The space mirror company says its light can't hurt your eyes. Here's what it told the FCC.

By Khaelex Moroe · 2026

Reflect Orbital wants to reflect sunlight down onto Earth at night. On its own website, the company says its light is “not bright enough to start fires or harm eyes, even when viewed through a telescope.”

That is the claim I checked. The public record tells it narrower.

The FCC order that cleared the company’s first satellite, DA 26-706, released July 9, 2026, grants Reflect Orbital authority to launch and operate a single demonstration spacecraft, Eärendil-1. On eye safety, it does not repeat the company’s flat assurance. It says harmful viewing “would require looking directly at the satellite through a telescope with a lens larger than 12 inches,” and calls the likelihood of harm “extremely small.”

Those are two different claims. “Can’t harm your eyes” is a statement about the light. “Requires a 12-inch telescope” is a statement about how hard the light is to look at safely, and under what conditions it would not be.

The same order declines to regulate eye safety at all. The Commission concluded that effects on optical astronomy fell outside its jurisdiction — framing the grant around “American leadership in the global space economy” and the test value of the technology. It is, in effect, a yes that confirms the risk exists rather than a finding that the risk is zero.

What outside reviewers told the FCC

Groups that filed comments and technical reports before the decision pushed harder than the order did.

In a filing asking the FCC to reverse its approval, DarkSky International said a technical report it submitted found the reflected light could be “intense enough to cause eye injury in a fraction of a second — faster than a person’s blink or aversion reflex.” The same coalition asked for an independent eye-safety threshold derived from ICNIRP guidance and a beam-pointing plan to avoid flash-blinding pilots and drivers.
The Air Line Pilots Association, representing more than 80,000 pilots, told the FCC the application did not adequately analyze the safety risk to aircraft.
The Center for Space Environmentalism condemned the approval outright, arguing the Commission “relied on narrow regulatory definitions” and prioritized commercial space over public safety.

The skyglow is not really in dispute

Astronomers’ objection is not that the light will blind people at random. It is that a steerable 60-by-60-foot reflector in orbit adds a moving artificial light source to a night sky that observatories depend on being dark. Reflect Orbital says its proof-of-concept light is designed to be low-intensity, “comparable to moonlight.” Critics say that is already too bright for professional astronomy, and the company has called some of its detractors’ assumptions “inaccurate.”

What is not contested by anyone: a satellite has not yet flown. Every number on both sides is a model, a filing, or a comment. The first real data arrives only after launch.

How to read this. This is a check of one specific claim against the primary documents, not a verdict on the mission. The company’s marketing language and the FCC order describe the same light to two different standards of care. If you want the full picture, read DA 26-706 directly, then the comments that asked for it to be reversed.

Sources

FCC, Order and Authorization, DA 26-706 (July 9, 2026)
DarkSky International, DarkSky and allies ask the FCC to reverse its approval
Center for Space Environmentalism, Statement on FCC approval
SpaceNews, FCC approves first Reflect Orbital satellite
Leonard David, Reflect Orbital test satellite: FCC go-ahead