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Orbital mirror does not have to be geosynchronous. It should rise before sunset and go beyond horizon after sunrise. This brings the orbit to about 15 thousand miles. If two mirrors illuminate the same site, orbit would be roughly 10 thousand miles. From sparse information about Znamya project I understand that the idea was to have a swarm of several mirrors at low orbits which together were supposed to illuminate several different sites in different time zones. This was absolutely plausible project, and it is very sad that it was abandoned.
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I have no intention of trying to meet any federal standards; not all that much a fan of letting government bureaucracy dictate technology. You can do so if you like.
Overall I'd be aiming for about 5 lux or about 5 times the illumination that the Moon provides at low latitudes. That's generally considered adequate for roads, and is around .01% of the intensity of sunlight. (Although I am sure it does not meet some bureaucrat's CYA requirements.) Thus you could lose five orders of magnitude worth of energy density from the mirror to the ground.Comment
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[QUOTE=Shmel; the idea was to have a swarm of several mirrors at low orbits which together were supposed to illuminate several different sites in different time zones. [/QUOTE]
This is one of the reasons the project was abandoned. That swarm of mirrors beamed to a single point would be perfect weapon of mass destruction, same as mentioned earlier.Comment
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