SpaceX founder Elon Musk wasn’t kidding about his plans to go big with orbital data centers: The company is asking the Federal Communications Commission to approve a plan to put up to a million satellites in orbit to process data for artificial intelligence applications.
“Launching a constellation of a million satellites that operate as orbital data centers is a first step towards becoming a Kardashev II-level civilization — one that can harness the sun’s full power — while supporting AI-driven applications for billions of people today and ensuring humanity’s multiplanetary future amongst the stars,” SpaceX said in an application filed with the FCC on Friday.
If realized, the plan could pose a challenge to AI titans including Microsoft, Amazon, Google and OpenAI — and to Seattle-area space companies such as Starcloud, Sophia Space and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture, all of which are aiming to serve the emerging data center market.
On the other hand, it could be a boon for SpaceX’s manufacturing facility in Redmond, Wash., which produces the satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink broadband constellation; and for Musk’s xAI company, which has been the focus of merger talks as SpaceX considers an initial public offering. The Wall Street Journal quoted unidentified sources as saying that Musk decided to take SpaceX public in part to raise more capital to build orbital data centers and to help xAI.
AI companies have been considering the idea of using solar-powered data center satellites to get around the limiting factors for ground-based facilities, such as rapidly growing requirements for electrical power as well as the availability of water for cooling systems.
SpaceX’s application plays up the advantages of off-Earth data processing: “By directly harnessing near-constant solar power with little operating or maintenance costs, these satellites will achieve transformative cost and energy efficiency while significantly reducing the environmental impact associated with terrestrial data centers,” it says.
Musk made the job sound simple when he discussed the prospects for orbital data centers on his X social-media platform last October: “Simply scaling up Starlink V3 satellites, which have high-speed laser links, would work,” he wrote. “SpaceX will be doing this.”
But SpaceX’s application lays out a relatively complex arrangement: Thousands of satellites would be arranged in orbital shells ranging from 500 to 2,000 kilometers (310 to 1,242 miles) above Earth, with each shell spanning up to 50 kilometers (31 miles) in altitude. Each satellite would be equipped with radiator panels to dissipate heat in the vacuum of space.
SpaceX says it can manage the safe disposal of satellites when they reach the end of their operating life. The company insists that its control systems would be able to head off collisions between satellites, and that most data transmissions would be beamed via laser light — which it says would reduce the risk of interference with other companies’ satellites. However, the satellites would also use Ka-band radio transmissions as a backup.
The new constellation’s satellite-to-satellite laser links “may connect among or between those satellites and satellites in SpaceX’s first- and second-generation Starlink system,” SpaceX says.
To accelerate the development of the constellation, SpaceX is asking the FCC to issue waivers that would exempt the project from several regulatory hurdles, including a processing round that would give other satellite operators an opportunity to weigh in on the plan.
The application doesn’t explain in detail what SpaceX would do to mitigate the effect on astronomical observations or views of the night sky — an issue that has sparked controversy in the context of Starlink. Last September, a study led by Dutch astronomers found that interference from Starlink was blinding the work of the research community.
As you’d expect, SpaceX paints a brighter picture: “SpaceX will continue its long track record of successful collaboration and innovation with the scientific and astronomy community to preserve their critical missions, including by developing industry-leading brightness mitigation,” the application says. “Furthermore, SpaceX will explore with the scientific community ways to use the powerful AI tools enabled by this constellation to accelerate their research and enhance space exploration.”
In a post to X, Musk argued that even a million more satellites won’t make much of an impact. “The satellites will actually be so far apart that it will be hard to see from one to another,” he wrote. “Space is so vast as to be beyond comprehension.”
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