A mirror 60 feet across, roughly 28 times thinner than a human hair, unfurling in orbit and throwing a patch of light five kilometers wide onto a dark stretch of ground below. That is the hardware Reflect Orbital is betting on, and on November 10, 2026, the Los Angeles-based startup announced a $73.5 million Series B to build and launch it. The round pushes the company's total funding past $100 million.
Sequoia Capital and Lux Capital, both returning investors, backed the round alongside Starship Ventures and Salesforce Ventures, plus three new backers: Buckley Ventures, Convective Capital and The Uncommon Group. Reflect Orbital previously raised a $6.5 million seed round in September 2024 led by Sequoia and a $20 million Series A in May 2025 led by Lux Capital, according to Tech Funding News. No valuation was disclosed.
A mirror constellation built for solar farms and emergency crews
Reflect Orbital was founded by Ben Nowack, a former SpaceX and Zipline engineer, along with Tristan Semmelhack. Its satellites carry deployable mirrors that redirect sunlight onto a chosen patch of ground after sunset. Each pass lasts about four minutes and produces illumination the company compares to a full moon, enough to extend the output window of a solar farm or light a site for responders and construction crews working at night.
The company has an FCC-approved demonstration satellite, Eärendil-1, scheduled to launch in the second quarter of 2027. Reflect Orbital's long-term plan calls for a constellation of as many as 50,000 mirror satellites by 2035, a scale that would put it among the largest orbital fleets ever proposed, well beyond even Starlink's current numbers for a single-purpose mission.
The pitch rests on a narrow but real gap: solar panels stop producing at dusk, right as some regions, including parts of the US grid, hit peak demand. A satellite that can hand a solar farm a few extra minutes of usable light at the right moment is a small but measurable lever on that mismatch, and it does not require new ground infrastructure.
Orbital power players multiply, but none do exactly this
Reflect Orbital's closest peers approach the same orbital-energy problem from different angles. Star Catcher Industries, which raised a $65 million Series A, is building a laser-based orbital power grid to beam electricity directly between satellites. TerraSpark, a Luxembourg startup, and ORiS, based in Turin, are both working on laser power transmission from orbit to Earth rather than reflected sunlight. None of the three has announced a mirror-based lighting product at Reflect Orbital's scale, which leaves the company with a relatively clear lane for now, though the broader category of space-based energy delivery is getting crowded fast.
The bigger test is regulatory and physical rather than competitive. Ground-based light pollution concerns have already drawn scrutiny from astronomers toward reflective satellite hardware, and Reflect Orbital will need to show that its illumination stays controllable and targeted as it scales from one demonstration satellite toward thousands.
What comes next
The immediate milestone is the Eärendil-1 launch in Q2 2027, which will be the first real-world test of mirror deployment, tracking accuracy and illumination strength outside a lab. How that mission performs, and whether early solar-farm or emergency-response customers sign on, will determine whether Reflect Orbital's 50,000-satellite roadmap is a realistic buildout or an aspirational ceiling.