The company call this „fake meteor showers on demand”. In fact, the fireworks will come courtesy of a satellite some 220 miles high which will circle the globe and will kick out 15 to 20 small metallic pebbles less than half an inch wide on command. They will blaze overhead for a few bright seconds over the city of the buyer’s choice. Customers could be cities, companies, amusement parks, the mega-rich, practically anyone who can pay for such a spectacular show. For the instant the cost was not yet revealed, except to say that it would be less than the massive fireworks displays that major cities use to celebrate holidays. That means it will be under $40.000.
This project was originally conceived as an opening act for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Some satellite experts question the logic of launching a sandblaster into orbit, given the risk that its projectiles might collide with any of the thousands of satellites that space firms such as SpaceX will be adding to the same orbit. ALE is building two small microsatellites, each 150-pound, the first scheduled for launch from Japan in December. They will have 300 to 400 shooting star particles and enough propellant to last 27 months in orbit before burning up in the atmosphere. Scientifically, the artificial meteors will burn up within four to five seconds before they fall to an altitude 37 miles above Earth.
