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Analysis: SpaceX FCC filing to launch up to 1M LEO satellites for solar powered AI data centers in space
SpaceX has applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to launch up to 1 million LEO satellites for a new solar-powered AI data center system in space. The private company, 40% owned by Elon Musk, envisions an orbital data center system with “unprecedented computing capacity” needed to run large-scale AI inference and applications for billions of users, according to SpaceX’s filing entered late on Friday.
Credit: Blueee/Alamy Stock Photo
The proposed new satellites would operate in “narrow orbital shells” of up to 50 kilometers each. The satellites would operate at altitudes of between 500 kilometers and 2,000 kilometers, and 30 degrees, and “sun-synchronous orbit inclinations” to capture power from the sun. The system is designed to be interconnected via optical links with existing Starlink broadband satellites, which would transmit data traffic back to ground Earth stations.
“Fortunately, the development of fully reusable launch vehicles like Starship that can deploy millions of tons of mass per year to orbit when launching at rate, means on-orbit processing capacity can reach unprecedented scale and speed compared to terrestrial buildouts, with significantly reduced environmental impact,” SpaceX said.
- Energy Density & Sustainability: By tapping into “near-constant solar power,” SpaceX aims to utilize a fraction of the Sun’s output—noting that even a millionth of its energy exceeds current civilizational demand by four orders of magnitude.
- Thermal Management: To address the cooling requirements of high-density AI clusters, these satellites will utilize radiative heat dissipation, eliminating the water-intensive cooling loops required by terrestrial facilities.
- Opex & Scalability: The financial viability of this orbital layer is tethered to the Starship launch platform. SpaceX anticipates that the radical reduction in $/kg launch costs provided by a fully reusable heavy-lift vehicle will enable rapid scaling and ensure that, within years, the lowest LCOA (Levelized Cost of AI) will be achieved in orbit.
- Vacuum-Speed Data Transmission: In a vacuum, light propagates roughly 50% faster than through terrestrial fiber optic cables. By utilizing Starlink’s optical inter-satellite links (OISLs)—a “petabit” laser mesh—data can bypass terrestrial bottlenecks and subsea cables. This potentially reduces intercontinental latency for AI inference to under 50ms, surpassing many long-haul terrestrial routes.
- Edge-Native Processing & Data Gravity: Current workflows require downlinking massive raw datasets (e.g., Synthetic Aperture Radar imagery) for terrestrial processing, a process that can take hours. Shifting to orbital edge computing allows for “in-situ” AI inference, processing data onboard to deliver actionable insights in minutes rather than hours. This “Space Cloud” architecture eliminates the need to route raw data back to the Earth’s internet backbone, reducing data transmission volumes by up to 90%.
- LEO Proximity vs. Terrestrial Hops: While terrestrial fiber remains the “gold standard” for short-range latency (typically 1–10ms), it is often hindered by inefficient routing and multiple hops. SpaceX’s LEO constellation, operating at altitudes between 340km and 614km, currently delivers median peak-hour latencies of ~26ms in the US. Future orbital configurations may feature clusters at varying 50km intervals to optimize for specific workload and latency tiers.
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The SpaceX FCC filing on Friday follows an exclusive report by Reuters that Elon Musk is considering merging SpaceX with his xAI (Grok chatbot) company ahead of an IPO later this year. Under the proposed merger, shares of xAI would be exchanged for shares in SpaceX. Two entities have been set up in Nevada to facilitate the transaction, Reuters said. Musk also runs electric automaker Tesla, tunnel company The Boring Co. and neurotechnology company Neuralink.
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References:
Google’s Project Suncatcher: a moonshot project to power ML/AI compute from space
Blue Origin announces TeraWave – satellite internet rival for Starlink and Amazon Leo
China ITU filing to put ~200K satellites in low earth orbit while FCC authorizes 7.5K additional Starlink LEO satellites
Amazon Leo (formerly Project Kuiper) unveils satellite broadband for enterprises; Competitive analysis with Starlink
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