Mir To Unfold Giant Space Mirror That Will Reflect Sun

Mir To Unfold Giant Space Mirror That Will Reflect Sun

By ADAM TANNER

MOSCOW (January 21, 1999 11:21 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - The crew on Russia's 12-year-old Mir space station plans to unfold a large space mirror next month to send light from the sun to dark corners of the Earth, space officials said Thursday.

"You could use such mirrors to reflect light at night when you need to carry out some work, or to regions of natural disaster," said Valery Lyndin, spokesman for Mission Control outside Moscow.

"You could also light up regions of the North during polar nights, so you wouldn't need city lights," he said.

In the experiment, an old Progress cargo supply ship will depart from Mir and on February 4 unfold a 25-yard Mylar mirror for as long as 18 hours.

Alla Botvinko, part of the team at the Energiya space rocket corporation that designed the experiment, called Znamya (banner) 2.5, said the February test would be the second of its kind following an effort in 1993.

"In the past experiment there was no observation from Earth. The cosmonauts saw it from Mir but there was no organized observation from Earth," she said.

Yevgeny Ryabko, the chief constructor of the reflective mirror, said that from Earth it would resemble a star as bright as the moon -- provided there was no cloud cover.

He said people living along parts of the U.S.-Canadian border, as well as citizens of the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, southern Russia and Kazakhstan might be able to see the reflection.

The two-man crew aboard the Mir station will be able to control the direction of the mirror through remote control of the Progress engines, officials said.

Although some space officials call the plan to reflect light to Earth a hair-brained scheme, its supporters say a series of orbiting mirrors could bring relief to vast sections of the Russian north that suffer bleak dark winters.

"We have several plans for the future which depend on financing," said Ryabko. "There is a possibility to make a whole series of devices, about 100, to reflect light, or one very large device in high orbit."

Some people are worried the idea could forever alter the heavens.

"We get many different letters from all over the place and the main opponents of the idea are astronomers who fear that the transfer of energy to Earth will hamper their efforts to find new stars as they need darkness," Ryabko said.

Yet funding is perhaps the biggest unknown of the project.

Russian officials say they still do not know when they will bring down the Mir station -- originally slated for a June 1999 retirement -- because of continued uncertainty over money, and further funding of the Znamya experiment is also unclear.

Mir has suffered a series of accidents, including a collision involving a cargo craft in June 1997, but no major problems have been reported in the last few months.