Should We — and Can We — Advertise in Space?
Getting a billboard into orbit may be the easy part
When a Russian startup called StartRocket revealed its plans for orbital billboards earlier this year, it was met with both skepticism from technologists and dismay from anyone who might prefer an unadulterated view of the night sky — astronomers very much included.
StartRocket’s plan is to use an array of up to 300 tiny satellites with reflective sails to display luminous logos in low-Earth orbit, visible from Earth. Each tiny sail would unfurl to create an advertising message over a big city for six minutes at a time.
In April, the company teamed up with the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, established in 2011 in collaboration with MIT, to test the reflective material. Together they successfully launched a probe and an angular reflector with light film attached to it — dubbed a “light pixel” — into the stratosphere. StartRocket confirmed it could be seen from the Earth. “We tested [the fabric’s] properties by raising it 180 meters above the ground at sunset,” Vladilen Sitnikov, StartRocket’s CEO, said in a statement. “We fastened the reflector with ropes and directed Xenon lights at it — their light temperature is the closest to that of the su — and observed a distinct spot of light.”
