In the twilight of the Soviet Union, scientists, led by the visionary engineer Vladimir Syromyatnikov, embarked on an audacious project to harness the power of the sun like never before. The plan was to deploy a series of massive orbital reflectors to beam sunlight back down to night covered regions of earth. Their project, referred to as Znamya or ‘Banner’ in Russian, would proceed through a series of experiments, building larger and ever more capable reflectors before finally deploying dozens of 200 meter (650 feet) wide reflectors that would operate as a system to focus sunlight to specific regions of earth.