Reflect Orbital
It is easy to envision that one day, the day-night cycle is at least partially selectable, and perhaps only in some regions on the Earth. People are not bound by being awake throughout the day; they are asleep at night and only see the light of the day. Envision a future where the sun can be switched on and off just like a light bulb is switched on instead of its limitations of the cycle associated with its actual physical relative, as we see above.
It is the future that Reflect Orbital is convinced is viable. The startup is working on satellites, which will deploy large mirrors to aim sunlight onto the desired spots on the ground. Synchronization of satellites in several orbits to the sun would mean that the satellites would follow the line that divides the day from the night with the extra lighting before dawn and after dusk.
Reflect Orbital Co-Founder
, and as co-founders Ben Nowack & CEO & Tristan Semmelhack, CTO of Reflect, there was a suggestion that additional sunlight could augment the volume of solar power fed into the electrical network. He and his partner expressed no need to construct other solar farms as the power from existing farms can be scaled up.
The startup became a web sensation earlier this year when Nowack posted a video of its plans and again when they shared a dramatic demonstration of the idea. However, they did not reveal that they were using a drone to mimic the reflected sunlight. Numerous answers emerged — lots of them grounded on basic logical arguments against the whole systems approach, even the basic assumption that it is possible to ‘paint the whole world’ with enough light to offset the reflected losses due to atmospheric diffusion at a reasonable cost.
But Nowack and Semmelhack are not cowed by the skeptics: “It could be noted that there is more solar in the pipeline in terms of capacity to be constructed in the U.S. than the total existing installed solar,” Nowack said in the interview. In a nutshell, “Here’s This Way” is appealing, a bit presumptuous, but full of intensity to make it even better. Here, solar energy can stand alone and completely power us. But apparently, what many of us crave is a sunlight-powered future, which is the future that we want to be/end up living in.”
Sunlight for Sale
In one sense, Reflect’s antecedent begins with YouTube. Semmelhack discovered Nowack through Nowack’s YouTube channel known as BenNBuilds while Semmelhack was in high school. On the channel, Nowack shared brief, no-frills clips of him ‘DIY’-ing some hardcore machines such as a turbojet engine or an iron furnace. Semmelhack again realized Nowack’s name after the latter sought a position at Zipline, where Semmelhack took an internship.
They became friends and spent hours talking into the night about wild concepts, according to Semmelhack. Gradually, Nowack began finding that more and more he thought about solar energy; it seemed to him that the amount that one could get off the solar power in the grid could be increased not through making the solar cell more conversion efficient or through building expensive lines for carrying the electricity, or in storing the energy through batteries but through making the sunlight available for longer hours of the day.
Semmelhack joined Zipline after a year at Stanford in April 2020. But had to take a leave of absence to launch Reflect with Nowack, her co-founder and CTO, in October 2021. Two years later, the company discusses the terms for the first orbital contract that will go into space next year.
Sequoia’s First Space Investment
Some of the calculations are straightforward. The totals for the reflector area are directly proportional to the values of power. That each array can reflect to the ground for a given number of satellites. Semmelhack added. However, at some point. He said it becomes cheaper to launch as many satellites as possible instead of building larger reflectors. And the company intends to raise the intensity of a specific region. On the ground by merging signals from two or more satellites.
However, even if these extra specifications are added. The satellites would have to be able to manage highly accurate control of their mirror once in orbit. And do this across tens of thousands of satellites. It will be a huge challenge.
If the viral videos on X generated backlash from skeptics, there was one very big upside: to draw Maguire’s attention. Who became the head of his firm’s first investment in SpaceX in 2019. As you know. Reflect also got 182,000 applications to reserve sunshine from their prototype satellite after they posted one of the videos. However, the light will be very weak, like a dim bulb, and it will stay on for about 4 minutes.
Nowack said that Maguire watched the video on his way to a recent test flight of SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket. He was sitting with SpaceX’s CFO on the plane. And all they were discussing was maybe there is some sort of use for Starship—some industry with interest in the ridiculous amount of payload capacity Starship offers. If your business is exploring complex opportunities like this, it might even be worth consulting a fractional CFO to evaluate potential strategies.
