Last month, on “Good Morning America,” Walt Disney World gave fans a sneak peek into what they are planning for the resort’s 50th anniversary this October. 

EPCOT has already been undergoing a major transformation throughout the park including Spaceship Earth. The park’s icon, which was to undergo reimagining of its namesake attraction but was been put on pause due to the pandemic, will see exterior enhancements in the coming months. Spaceship Earth’s “Beacon of Magic” will come in the form of new exterior lighting, which Disney says will be permanent.

Now Imagineer Zack Riddley has shared some details on the new lighting. In an Instagram post, Riddley posted images of one of the lights being installed in the center of one of Spaceship Earth’s panels.

“A few weeks ago we shared our exciting plans for new Spaceship Earth lighting debuting Oct. 1, 2021 as a Beacon of Magic during the 50th anniversary celebration @WaltDisneyWorld,” wrote Riddley. “Today I’m excited to give you a first look at one of the points of light, as overnight our team test fit the very first of these fixtures before we start installing at the top and working our way down! Our team at Imagineering has been hard at work innovating the design and technology for this poetic and inspirational lighting concept. And we’ve had to get quite ingenious in how we go about installing these new fixtures and all the high-tech systems so that they seamlessly integrate with the iconic profile of Spaceship Earth. There is a lot more work ahead as we continue installation and ready for testing, but I couldn’t wait to share with you that we’ve begun.”

Shortly after that post, the Disney community took to social media not to express their excitement for the new addition, but to mercilessly mock it. One blogger took to Twitter and said, “Installing enormous taplights in order to turn Spaceship Earth into Liberace’s microphone is NOT good engineering and it’s [sic] not imaginative,” while other posted pictures of taplights.

Later in the day, Walt Disney Imagineering posted a video on Tik Tok giving a close up look on the new lighting. In the video, Walt Disney Imagineer Jason talks about how the points of light will fit on to Spaceship Earth, as well as how they will work.
 

 

The fixture, which was created by Walt Disney Imagineering, has a large center light and six smaller pin spot lights around the edges. The center light will shine out with different colors from the front and the side lights will illuminate the side panels on the globe.

One blogger believes that Disney will affix these lights to alternating empty spots along the surface of the attraction. However, at this time it is unclear how flush these fixtures will sit against Spaceship Earth.

Recently, Disney added new flags representing each of the pavilions, new entrance lighting, new background music, new landscaping, and a new entrance fountain.