Donald W. Reynolds Center for the Visual Arts
E. L. Wiegand Gallery
160 West Liberty Street, Reno NV 89501
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MEDIA CONTACT:Amanda Horn, Senior Vice President, Communications(o) 775.398.7228 / (m) 775.636.2567 / amanda.horn@nevadaart.org‘ORBITAL REFLECTOR’ IGNITES GLOBAL CONVERSATION AND INSPIRES WONDER DESPITE CHALLENGES
Reno, Nev. (May 1, 2019) – In 2015 the artist Trevor Paglen and the Nevada Museum of Art undertook theunprecedented joint venture of launching a satellite into outer space. Working as co-producer and presenter, theMuseum served as the public and educational interface to support Paglen’s aim to be the first artist to place a
non-military, non-scientific, non-commercial satellite into low-Earth orbit. The Museum raised funds above andbeyond its regular operating budget to support the project. The purpose of Paglen’s space-bound sculpture was toemploy art as a means by which to encourage people around the world to see the sky with fresh eyes and to reenvision space as a place of possibility.
Paglen, who holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a PhD in Geography from theUniversity of California, Berkeley, is a 2017 winner of a MacArthur Fellowship (“Genius Grant”) and was an artistin-residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Orbital Reflector, Paglen’s most ambitious project todate, proposed launching a satellite about the size of a shoebox (known as a CubeSat) into space carrying a onehundred-foot-long, diamond-shaped, inflatable balloon set to unfurl and expand into a sculpture that would reflectsunlight back to Earth. Once in orbit, Orbital Reflector was intended to appear regularly in the sky as a fast
moving “star” before disintegration following re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
After three years of engineering development, Orbital Reflector successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force
Base aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on December 3, 2018. The launch was historically significant given theunprecedented number of 64 privately-funded, utilitarian payloads that traveled on the rocket alongside Orbital
Reflector. In the days following the launch, the ground team at the aerospace firm Global Western stayed inregular contact with the spacecraft, checking its subsystems, and monitoring its temperature and position.
Orbital Reflector successfully separated from the rocket and was deployed within a cluster of similarly sizedspacecraft. To avoid collision, Orbital Reflector was set to inflate once it drifted away from potential impacts, andafter it had received final clearance and approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The
satellite’s electronics and hardware were designed to function during this waiting period but were not hardened
for long-term functionality in space. From the start, the satellite was designed to be as light and functional aspossible to allow for eventual disintegration.
After launch, the ground team continued its monitoring while waiting for other satellites from the rocket launch todisperse in order to safely inflate the reflective structure. Then two unanticipated events occurred: 1) Due to theunprecedented number of satellites on the rocket, the U.S. Air Force was unable to distinguish between them andcould not assign tracking numbers to many of the them. Without a tracking number to verify location andposition, the FCC could not give approval for inflation; and 2) The FCC was unavailable to move forward quickly
due to the U.S. government shutdown.

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CONTACT: Amanda Horn, Senior Vice President, Communications, (o) 775.398.7228 / (m) 775.636.2567 / amanda.horn@nevadaart.org

Although communications with Orbital Reflector continued throughout these events, reliable signals between thesatellite and the ground team were becoming infrequent. By the time the government was re-opened and the Air
Force renewed its attempts to sort out the cloud of satellites, communications from spacecraft had gone silent. At
this point, it became clear that tracking Orbital Reflector, either before or after its inflation in space, would nolonger be a viable outcome.
Like the work of his historic predecessor, the Russian avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich who sought to launch
sculptural art objects into space in the early 1900s, Paglen dared to imagine the impossible when he first
proposed Orbital Reflector. Paglen wanted the world to ask serious questions about who controls space: Doesanyone own it? And who ultimately decides how it is used? The final chapter of Orbital Reflector brings thesequestions and issues to the forefront. Like pioneering Land Artists of the late 1960s, whose larger-than-life
gestures in extreme desert environments changed the course of art history, Paglen’s radically experimental
endeavor will be forever etched into the narrative of twenty-first century contemporary art practice.
There is no doubt that Paglen’s provocative gesture captured the hearts and minds of professional and amateurastronomers, media outlets, the general public, educators, and students across the country and around theworld. At the Nevada Museum of Art, Orbital Reflector became an important icon for STEAM education. The
project truly epitomizes the interdisciplinary connections between the fields of science, technology, engineering,arts, and mathematics, and provides a long-term framework for educators developing future cross-disciplinary
practices in the K-12 classroom.
Space remains one of the world’s greatest mysteries, and like the world’s best art, it continues to inspire
seemingly endless curiosity and wonder. Orbital Reflector invited all of us to reconsider what we thought we knew
about space, and to join a dynamic and ongoing conversation about our collective future.
The Nevada Museum of Art is grateful to all involved, particularly our visionary sponsors: Blockchains LLC, I. Heidi
Loeb Hegerich, Switch, Louise A. Tarble Foundation, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, The JacquieFoundation, Piper Stremmel and Chris Reilly, Charles and Margaret Burback Foundation, Barrick Gold, The Fisher
Brothers, Nion McEvoy, RBC Wealth Management and City National Bank, Sandy and Steve Hardie, Karyn andLance Tendler, Henry Moore Foundation, and the 557 backers of the Orbital Reflector Kickstarter campaign.
###Nevada Museum of Art Mission Statement
We are a museum of ideas. While building upon our founding collections and values, we strive to offer meaningful art
experiences and foster new knowledge in the visual arts by encouraging interdisciplinary investigation. The Nevada Museumof Art serves as an educational resource for everyone.
About Nevada Museum of Art
Nevada Museum of Art is the only art museum in Nevada accredited by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). A private,
non-profit organization founded in 1931, the Reno-based institution is supported by its membership as well as sponsorships,gifts and grants. Through its permanent collections, original exhibitions and programming, and E.L. Cord Museum School, theNevada Museum of Art provides meaningful opportunities for people to engage with a range of art and educationalexperiences. Its Center for Art + Environment is an internationally-recognized research center dedicated to supporting thepractice, study, and awareness of creative interactions between people and their environments. The Center houses uniquearchive materials from more than 1,000 artists working on all seven continents, including Cape Farewell, Michael Heizer,
Walter de Maria, Lita Albuquerque, Burning Man, Center for Land Interpretation, Ugo Rondinone’s Seven Magic Mountains,
and Trevor Paglen’s Orbital Reflector. Learn more at nevadaart.org.