Organizaciones ambientales piden a la FCC que revierta la aprobación del plan de Reflect Orbital

PEER, DarkSky International, the American Bird Conservancy, and Environment America — represented by Earthjustice — filed a formal Application for Review asking the Federal Communications Commission ( FCC ) to reverse its Space Bureau’s approval of Reflect Orbital Inc.’s Earendil-1 satellite.

Earendil-1 is a commercial satellite that will reflect sunlight back to Earth at night.

The Space Bureau granted Reflect Orbital’s application on July 9, 2026, finding it served the public interest and fell outside the environmental review requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) — the federal law requiring agencies to study the environmental effects of major actions on the United States before granting approval.

Reflect Orbital’s business model is to sell sunlight at night for uses such as replacing streetlights, extending outdoor work hours, and powering solar arrays. To do this, Earendil-1 will unfold a mirror roughly a tenth of an acre wide at 600 – 650 km altitude and steer reflected sunlight to chosen spots on the ground. A single Earendil-1 satellite is expected to project a beam roughly 5 km (over 3 miles) wide as it sweeps the ground, with scattered light extending further still.

Although Reflect Orbital’s FCC application covers only this one satellite, the company has called this a “crucial testbed” for a much larger operation, with publicly stated plans to scale up to 50,000 satellites by 2035.

In March, PEER and other groups filed comments with the FCC opposing Reflect Orbital’s original application for approval. In last week’s Application for Review, the groups say the Bureau didn’t adequately address a number of issues, including:

Our main request is for the FCC to reverse the Space Bureau’s order and require a full, lawful environmental review — an Environmental Assessment or Impact Statement — before Earendil-1 is authorized to operate at all.