Comment by cyberax
14 days ago
You can't focus sunlight at the satellite distances. And this is a fundamental problem, the focal distance varies for each wavelength so your focus point will be smeared. You need monochromatic light for that (a laser).
Edit: and also don't forget that the Sun is not a point source and has an appreciable angular size, further making it impossible to focus it with a reasonably-sized lens or mirror.
I see your point for lenses but how would that happen with mirrors?
Yeah, you are correct. The mirrors are not affected by the wavelength, though they are affected by the non-zero angular size of the Sun.
There are some non-linear effects that _are_ dependent on the wavelength, but not important to matter here.