Chinese City to Launch Artificial Moon

China wants to launch a world-first ‘man-made moon’ over the southwestern city of Chengdu by 2020 to help illuminate the city at night.
If the first artificial moon experiment is successful, China will launch three more ‘moons’ in space in 2022, potentially saving electricity and conserving energy, Oil Price reports.
The man-made moon that will be orbiting the Earth will have a reflective coating designed to deflect sunlight back to the earth’s surface similar to the shining of the Moon, Wu Chunfeng, the head of Tian Fu New Area Science Society in Chengdu, said in an interview.
The artificial moon will actually be an illumination satellite that will complement the shining of the moon at night. But the man-made moon is expected to be eight times brighter than the original moon, Wu said.
The brighter shining will be due to the much closer orbit at which the illumination satellite will stay—around 500km from Earth, compared to the average distance of the Moon to the Earth of 380,000km, the scientist said.
“But this is not enough to light up the entire night sky,” Wu told China Daily. “It’s expected brightness, in the eyes of humans, is around one-fifth of normal streetlights,” he noted.
The scientists behind the project expect that the artificial moon could replace some street lights in the urban area in Chengdu.
According to Wu, the city of Chengdu could save $173 million every year if its artificial moon illuminates 50 square kilometers of the city.
The ‘moon’ may also be turned off, if needed, the scientists expect.