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There's a new (passive solar) orbital reflector, called the Orbital Reflector.

While Mayak (Маяк) was a crowdfunded project at Moscow State Mechanical Engineering University and the Humanity Star was designed and built by a small group at Rocket Labs, the Orbital Reflector project, driven by artist Trevor Paglen has backing and technical contribution from spacecraft engineers and aerospace companies, the Nevada Museum of Art, and (likely) other patrons.

Looking at the project's website orbitalreflector.com I can see that the inflatable structure is long and skinny and the orientations of the faces are not distributed uniformly.

I would guess that some substantial thought has been put into the project. What will be the orientation of the spacecraft and it's reflectors once in LEO, and will that orientation be good or bad for visibility?

Question: What will be the attitude of the upcoming "Orbital Reflector"? Will this result in good visibility?

See the artist's (Paglen's) own article in Medium: Let’s Get Pissed Off About Orbital Reflector… and Gizmodo's Hey Artists, Stop Putting Shiny Crap Into Space

the Orbital Reflector spacecraft


If you would like to read further about these previous orbital reflectors, the questions and answers contain plenty of reference material:

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  • $\begingroup$ Just to check, "Will this result in good visibility?" refers to the visibility from the ground for us Earthlings, correct? $\endgroup$
    – ChrisR
    Commented Sep 27, 2018 at 4:44
  • $\begingroup$ @ChrisR Check the several links I've taken the time to read and then include, two by the artist and one (Gizmodo) about. $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Sep 27, 2018 at 9:15
  • $\begingroup$ I don't know anything about this, but both the image and youtube "thumbnail" show solar panels facing away from the sun, so I'd question your guess that "some substantial thought has been put into the project" $\endgroup$
    – user20636
    Commented Oct 7, 2019 at 8:28
  • $\begingroup$ @JCRM well 1) the project has several aspects and thought may not have been allocated across all of them evenly, 2) the space artist for the concept drawing may not have been the engineer, 3) the panels might simply be double-sided. $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Oct 7, 2019 at 8:46
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    $\begingroup$ @uhoh none make mention of a scientific objective, so I suppose the former. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 8, 2019 at 5:51

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