The aerospace company Maxar has an idea that sounds like science fiction: Mirrors should illuminate the moon with sunlight.
The Light Bender project aims to illuminate the moon’s surface with the sun’s rays. (Source: Maxar)
The private space company Maxar has come up with a daring plan to give astronauts better working conditions on the moon. With the help of large mirrors, sunlight is to be reflected onto the lunar surface.
On the one hand, this would bring better working conditions for future missions. On the other hand, solar cells could be operated with the help of the sun’s rays, which should ensure the energy supply. A lunar day is 14 earth days, which currently makes longer stays difficult. Some areas on the Earth’s satellite are even permanently in the dark, for example because they are in the shadow of large mountains.
The mirrors positioned on the lunar surface should work completely autonomously, i.e. automatically capture the sunlight and direct it to the desired places on the moon.
“Part of our plan is relatively simple,” says Sean Dougherty, chief robotics architect and team leader on the Light Bender project. “It’s going to be complex because it’s all supposed to happen autonomously (…) No one has done that before.”
The NASA-supported project envisages attaching the mirrors with a diameter of ten meters to a 20-metre-high mast. From there, the sunlight is deflected onto a second mirror, which in turn directs it to the desired locations on the moon. There it then meets solar cells for power generation or work areas that should be in the light.
You can find out more about this exciting project, which is scheduled to go into test operation from 2025, here.
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