A controversial US artist has crowdfunded to have a "star" launched into orbit.

The "temporary satellite", Orbital Reflector, will reflect the Sun's rays back to Earth.

The installation is meant to be launched on a SpaceX rocket in late October but astronomers are annoyed about space debris and light pollution, which could impede space observation.

A controversial US artist is on track to have his crowdfunded "star" launched into orbit aboard a SpaceX rocket — a rocket from the same company that sent a Tesla Roadster hurtling through the galaxy to mostly widespread cheers of acclaim earlier this year.

Trevor Paglen has toiled over his latest work "Orbital Reflector" for 10 years and, as you can probable tell by now, it isn't a star; the 33-metre reflective obelisk is an installation.

The artist takes his work seriously and so should we: he's made a name for himself and won several prestigious awards by focusing on mass surveillance. Having written several books about the CIA and secrecy in the US, he also once sent 100 pictures hurtling through space for other civilisations to find.

When released, Paglen's work will be monitored for three months, because that's how long you'll be able to see it shining at night as it orbits the Earth every 90 minutes, 560km above us.

But two months before it's even released, it's already causing a fuss.

Technically, it's a "temporary satellite". Paglen has called upon a $76,000 Kickstarter donation, the Nevada Museum of Art, and aerospace company Spaceflight Industries to create it. When it's finished, it will have cost somewhere in the order of $1.3 million to create.

The diamond-shaped polyethylene balloon is coated with titanium dioxide to make it as shiny as possible. It will be packed into a CubeSat and when it reaches its destination, a carbon dioxide charge will inflate it.

As long as it stays up without disintegrating — and that should be at least two months — it will reflect the Sun's rays back to Earth, which means you'll definitely be able to see it at night.

Paglen has been working on "Orbital Reflector" for 10 years. The Nevada Museum of Art

Some astronomers — and journalists — are annoyed about that, because we've got enough debris surrounding our planet without deliberately adding to it. And apparently, even just one extra shiny object can cause enough light pollution to get in the way of serious scientific observation.

The point is, it's not just one extra object. Earlier this year, New Zealand startup Rocket Lab pretty much smuggled a massive disco ball into space, but it didn't last as long as they thought it would and disintegrated after about two months.

"It's the space equivalent of someone putting a neon advertising billboard right outside your bedroom window," Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, told Gizmodo.

So it's possible we're seeing the start of a bit of a run on space as a new frontier for art. And quite likely, advertising.

"What this calls for is a more detailed and widespread engagement of moral and ethical implications of space exploration, as well as an internationally acknowledged legislation on space and its responsible usage," Dr Daniel Brown, an astrophysicist at Nottingham Trent University, told The Times.

Space debris is certainly a problem that humans seem to be doing their best to ignore, because thinking about it too much might get in the way of cool projects like blanketing the Earth with tens of thousands of nanosatellites giving us all amazing internet coverage.

But that's exactly the point of Orbital Reflector. It's supposed to make us more aware of all that activity way up there that's driving our lives down here. "By transforming 'space' into 'place'," the project website says, "it makes visible the invisible, thereby rekindling our imaginations and fueling potential for the future."

No, this is ludicrous. SpaceX via Getty Image

Paglen recently responded to critics in an email to artnet, saying:

"It's incredibly unlikely that Orbital Reflector would move through the field-of-view of a telescope right in the middle of an important observation and thereby ruin the observation."

And why, he asks, is it any more of a problem for stargazers than any of the other hundreds (soon to be thousands) of satellites due to launch every year?

Paglen still doesn't have clearance from the US Federal Communications Commission to place his CubeSat aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket but it's due to be launched as early as late October.

At least Paglen can assure us that his space junk will burn up within a couple of months.