SpaceX submits proposal to FCC for new constellation of one million satellites
SpaceX yesterday submitted a proposal to Federal Communications Commission to build new satellite constellation made up of one million satellites designed as an orbiting data center.
In one 8-page document, SpaceX describes its proposed Orbital Data Center system. “To deliver the compute capacity required for large scale AI inference and data center applications serving billions of users globally, SpaceX aims to deploy a system of up to one million satellites to operate within narrow orbital shells spanning up to 50 km each (leaving sufficient room to deconflict against other systems with comparable ambitions),” the company says.
The same satellites would harness the sun’s energy, orbiting at “between 500 km and 2,000 km altitude and 30 degrees and sun-synchronous orbit inclinations,” the company adds. The orbiting data centers would also use “optical links,” or lasers, to connect with Starlink, using the existing satellite internet system to route traffic to users below.
“Orbital data centers are the most efficient way to meet the accelerating demand for AI computing power,” the filing adds in bold, pointing to the growing energy costs of AI data centers on Earth. The company is also betting it can launch the space-based data centers at a rapid clip using SpaceX’s more powerful Starship vehicle, which is also crucial to upgrading Starlink with next-generation satellites.
The FCC is likely not going to okay this submission, as written. It is clearly very preliminary, but appears to be consistent with SpaceX’s way of doing business. It sees an opportunity, and jumps in with full force. While others are working up their plans, SpaceX submits its first license proposal outlining the plan in very broad terms, thus getting there first.
And SpaceX is very well positioned to launch this constellation as promised. It has the rockets, and has proven itself capable of running a satellite constellation of vast size.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
SpaceX yesterday submitted a proposal to Federal Communications Commission to build new satellite constellation made up of one million satellites designed as an orbiting data center.
In one 8-page document, SpaceX describes its proposed Orbital Data Center system. “To deliver the compute capacity required for large scale AI inference and data center applications serving billions of users globally, SpaceX aims to deploy a system of up to one million satellites to operate within narrow orbital shells spanning up to 50 km each (leaving sufficient room to deconflict against other systems with comparable ambitions),” the company says.
The same satellites would harness the sun’s energy, orbiting at “between 500 km and 2,000 km altitude and 30 degrees and sun-synchronous orbit inclinations,” the company adds. The orbiting data centers would also use “optical links,” or lasers, to connect with Starlink, using the existing satellite internet system to route traffic to users below.
“Orbital data centers are the most efficient way to meet the accelerating demand for AI computing power,” the filing adds in bold, pointing to the growing energy costs of AI data centers on Earth. The company is also betting it can launch the space-based data centers at a rapid clip using SpaceX’s more powerful Starship vehicle, which is also crucial to upgrading Starlink with next-generation satellites.
The FCC is likely not going to okay this submission, as written. It is clearly very preliminary, but appears to be consistent with SpaceX’s way of doing business. It sees an opportunity, and jumps in with full force. While others are working up their plans, SpaceX submits its first license proposal outlining the plan in very broad terms, thus getting there first.
And SpaceX is very well positioned to launch this constellation as promised. It has the rockets, and has proven itself capable of running a satellite constellation of vast size.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Elon likes to get a rise out of people.
I think it was Hitchcock that once said something along the lines of….always ask for more than you want–so the boss can compromise things down to what you really wanted to begin with.
This could make a business case for Starship that Mars lacks. The projected fleet size and cadence requiring something massive and profitable to make sense. With the caveat that I know Jack about data centers. Just that a million satellites match the thousands of Starship flights annually.
Yes!
This is a cash flow source and a significant infrastructure model/protoype to build a Mars colony. How many of us thought this might actually happen in our lifetime? Fifty years have passed and we, via the government, are just circling the moon again.
To John Hare
It is hard to make any business case for Mars colonization. Elon wants humanity a multi planetary species—good economics or no. No one busts his chops over it.
Not even wrestling mags or FANGORIA sales saved Starlog.
Still, having additional revenue helps.
The way Musk feels about Mars I feel about spacecraft advancement for its own sake.
The greatest thing about SpaceX isn’t reusability….most if not all rockets wind up in the drink. FH being expended for certain probes, no biggie.
The best thing SpaceX ever did was in SuperHeavy humbling the CFD nerds. I had hoped a side-mount winged boilerplate would have been the test article to humble them.
CFDs are what the Global Warming types use as a cudgel and I want as many holes shot through computer models as possible.
What Starship development does is just make Starship better. That’s fine, but America needs all kinds of hypersonic boilerplates.
Maybe Starship can release such test article….but being in-line, you can’t really test piggyback concepts.
I bash the USAF when they need it…but I don’t want them or winged spaceflight advocates left out in the cold either.
I will admit that when I saw the header, I immediately flashed on Dr. Evil.
Or, maybe Al Pacino: “You want Kessler Syndrome! I’ll *show* you Kessler Syndrome!”
Personally, not something I’m overly concerned with. Market forces will likely prevent it.
The part of the filing where SpaceX says the proposed orbits won’t conflict with ” . . . those with similar ambitions.”, is amusing. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if China announced a two-million bird satcon (can that be a word?).
So apparently just piggy-backing AI data center payloads on Starlink V3 birds is only the two-chip ante in this poker game. This – literal – mega-constellation is what SpaceX intends to be doing from the ground – at least to start with – to steal a decisive march on Elon’s AI competitors while also industrializing the Moon and Mars. One thing you have to say about Elon – he never shies away from wherever the numbers lead him.
One certain concomitant to this plan will be the necessity of comprehensively wiping the Earth-orbital skies of space debris to keep ballistic damage to the AI sats down to whatever the minimum possible level turns out to be based on strictly natural-origin impactors. Scrubbing Earth orbit of litter is a big project, but, compared to deploying a million AI sats, it’s a comparative five-finger exercise.
It would be a far less colorful and interesting world without Elon Musk in it.
Jeff Wright,
I don’t know if Hitch ever said that “ask for more than you want” thing, but Donald J. Trump certainly has.
As is so often the case, you are nursing a grudge against the wrong nerds. The CFD codes used to simulate spacecraft aerodynamics are quite a distance from the math “models” used to make scary climate predictions. Completely disjoint groups of nerds. The biggest difference is that the aerospace nerds actually know how to write good code.
The business case for Mars colonization would seem to be the same as the case for lunar industrialization and this just-floated LEO AI mega-constellation idea. If the initial colonists are all – or mostly – SpaceX employees sent to gin up Mars-orbit AI data centers then there’s a decent financial basis for the larger humanity’s-backup-drive project. Cis-Martian AI training capacity would produce economic value in the form of usable models that could be employed locally as well as exported back to the Earth-Moon system. Interplanetary trade will be mostly digital IP in the early going, with energy and artifacts of physical matter entering the mix later.
The most important thing about SpaceX is reusability. Absent that, none of the rest of Elon’s big space-related plans works at all. Heresy in Huntsville, I know, but them’s the breaks, Bubba.
In terms of reusability, before SLS there was SLI…and people hated on that too.
Servers like these being discussed pretty much have to be junior league powersats to work.
Tech wise, I’d like to see old missile silos for server farms so as to give them some EMP protection. Outside the faraday cage set up you have fiber.
Beam the power down from space with solar thermal powersats. Instead of PV, the solar reflectors are inert, and more resistant to micrometeoroids and cosmic rays.
The NORAD approach.
If not silos, then put server farms in dead malls.
The colonization of Mars will ultimately happen despite doubts about economic benefits. People born now will want to live there when they are adults. Most European people in 1700s could not imagine moving to North America. A hundred years later it became attractive to the brave.
@Rockribbed
Only a small fraction of the European population ever left for the Americas at any given time.
Jeff Wright,
SLI was a sort of tossed salad of mostly unrelated projects. The principal person who “hated on it” seems to have been then-NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe as he was apparently the one who killed it. Not that his successor, Mike Griffin would have acted any differently. He, notoriously, had it in for anything launchable on an EELV and part of SLI would have been exactly that.
“Junior league powersats” is likely a good shorthand description of Elon’s proposed AI sats, but we shall have to see what emerges.
20 or 25 years ago I seem to recall some outfit bought a surplus Cold War doomsday bunker of some sort and fitted it out with rentable EIA 19″ rack space. I have no idea if that enterprise is still a going concern and I no longer remember its name.
The number of comparable installations, including decommissioned missile silos, is quite limited, however, and the power and cooling requirements of a big server farm are considerably in excess of what was needed to run such hard sites. If you have external power coming in, you have a vulnerability to EMP.
There are certainly more available dead malls than doomsday bunkers. But power and cooling would still be a problem. Those issues have also plagued emptied high-rise office buildings that have been turned into server farms. Past a certain scale, server farms really need to be bespoke, not conversions of something else.
So a million or so satellite population ringing the planet will surely change our lifestyle here on Trantor – er. Earth.
To Blair Ivey
So this proposal starts to drive issues I think I have noted before:
– Can an orbit be claimed like real estate? The Lagrange points would obviously be high in value. But then the lowly possibly “dirty” (with space junk) or crowded LEO orbits would be valuable as well – but really only valuable in quantity.
– Some areas – orbits – may have space junk. You want to “clean” an orbit, OK; Who will pay for that service? I’ve never understood the business model for space junk “cleaning” without ownership.
– Can an unused orbit be claimed?
– If you “clean” an orbit is it ours?
I realize that we are talking vast volumes but at a million plus new satellites plus all other existing constellations and proposed mega constellations its getting crowded I would think.
Is there some mechanism or treaty I’m missing here? Asking the FCC for permission is only the USA.
Jeff Wright
I’m not sure the CFD, or just simulation usage in general in the Global Warming/Climate Change argument is the issue per se. I see it as selectively selecting what to enter into the simulation as data and how it is weighted. My understanding is things like water vapor and ocean temps are paid less attention to. Also there is the arrogance of thinking that science knows or can know what is going on – overconfidence in the simulation. It’s not recognizing the sheer complexity of the climate.
Also SpaceX does not mind putting up a “first generation” of a thing knowing it’s not the ultimate design – just to learn and progress.
Often, with them, the first design is not THE design.
Some internet commentators were talking about the gross capitalization of a hypothetical Tesla+SpaceX+xAI corporation, and one said “That’s not a gross capitalization, that’s a GDP!
Another question was “What is the biggest threat to the Muskonomy?”
Answer: Next Democrat President or Majority!
Chris,
Allocation of “slots” in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit are handled in a real estate-ish manner by the International Telecommunications Union so there is a precedent for treating an orbit like a piece of property. Perhaps a similar system will be extended to other orbits, though if the purpose of the satellites in a given orbit is not primarily telecommunication, then the ITU is probably not the entity to be doing the allocations.
The Outer Space Treaty prohibits claims of ownership or sovereignty on “celestial bodies,” but an orbit isn’t a “body” so we have a potential loophole that might allow for actual ownership of orbits. All of this is very much TBD at this point. This new SpaceX project could well be the impetus needed to get a property rights regime anent orbits established in some fashion.
Who will clean up the space junk? It has long been my view that the party or parties with the most direct vulnerability to debris strikes would be motivated to do that job out of simple self-interest. Based on both existing and planned Earth-orbital projects, that would be SpaceX. SpaceX is ideally suited to do this job and will figure out ways to do it that maximize cost-effectiveness. I would guess that would mean using suitably-equipped Starships to go after the big stuff, smaller space tugs to go after smaller stuff and laser sweepers to address the smallest, non-trackable, stuff.
“If you clean an orbit, is it yours?” As human-caused space debris will continue to be a problem, a one-and-done “cleaning” will not solve the problem for all time. There will be an initial dragnet required to clear the accumulation of decades, but then we will enter a maintenance mode where new bits of space junk have to be dealt with. So I don’t think cleaning an orbit will entitle one to outright ownership, but it could quite reasonably entitle one to preferential use of said orbit. Given that individual bits of debris typically cross through any number of orbits anyway, cleaning one orbit is also going to clean others. That’s a public service and should be recognized and compensated in terms of usage privileges to particular orbits of interest.
Ray Van Dune,
The proffered answer to that threat question assumes the inevitability of a future Democratic administration/Congressional majority. I think that is anything but inevitable given recent trends in voter registration and the serial revelations of the Democratic Party being a vast organized crime entity at all levels. Political parties enjoy no patent of immortality. In other nations, parties come and go all the time. That is less common here, but it has happened and not just to fringe parties. The fate of the Whigs in the mid-19th century is the paradigmatic example of a major party disappearing in the US.
Several marginally related and poorly expressed thoughts:
Proposed altitude for the constellation is 500 – 2000 km in 50 km thick shells.
Always uncomfortable with solar powered AI. How do we turn it off after it is turned on? Lots of SciFi with this premise. Fred Saberhagen’s Berserker series and Colossus: The Forbin Project is another.
Massive data centers and their massive energy needs may be technical box cannon, begging for another approach which may very well exist today. Jay Valentine of Fractal Computing has a distributed approach that he claims does not need data centers at all. This is based on what appears to be a next generation SQL that works the I/O part of the problem.
https://fractalcomputing.substack.com/
Cheers –
“Given that individual bits of debris typically cross through any number of orbits anyway, cleaning one orbit is also going to clean others. That’s a public service and should be recognized and compensated in terms of usage privileges to particular orbits of interest.”
This would indeed be a sensible policy approach.
Well, more “shhhhtuff” in orbit will hopefully assist in pushing future telescope development off the surface of the Earth.
The Luddites will still complain.
I remember a podcast talking about telescopes on the Dark Side Of The Moon. All of the terrestrial noise from Earth would be blocked.
The “dark” side of the moon is just as sunny as the “Earth” side, but is shielded from Earth-based RF emissions of course. So it may be a good location for radio
Ps. The Earth side has a sunlit Earth to contend with when the Sun is below the horizon, and the Sun itself (and a dark Earth) when it is not, so the Earth side of the Moon is the somewhat more light-polluted side!
I don’t see orbital junk as a huge issue as there is so much room in orbit. It wouldn’t surprise me if the junk is harvested, melted down in a solar powered furnace and eventually used as construction material. It could be quite valuable on the Moon or Mars.
Dick Eagleson – thanks for the explanation
Chris proposed the questions: “Can an orbit be claimed like real estate?” and: “Can an unused orbit be claimed?”
This kind of depends upon what you mean by orbit: The orbital plane? The ellipse within that plane? The specific location on that ellipse at time t=0 (or t=now)? Geostationary orbit is a good example to examine these questions. Clearly, the plane and the ellipse are not exclusive property, but it is clear that specific locations are occupied and thus “owned” by specific operators while their satellites are in those locations. From our vantage point, those locations are stationary, so the satellite owner can be thought of as owning that location in space. From the vantage point of an inertial reference frame, that point moves around the Earth once a day. Geez! How can a little perspective screw up a perfectly good argument? Hmm. Let’s make that “How a little perspective can screw up a perfectly good argument.”
So, what about planes and ellipses that cross each other, at least come within the size of the satellites in locations that risk collision? When these orbits (plane + ellipse + location) intersect at the same time? Who owned that location at time t=collision. When we drive down the street, do we own the location that our automobile occupies as we drive along, or do we merely own the auto?
Even the Lagrange points are equally difficult. They remain stationary when the smaller of the massive bodies is in a circular orbit. Stationary relative to the rotation of the orbiting body, so again, this is not an inertial reference frame. But it gets worse when the orbiting body is in an elliptical orbit (e≠0), because these points drift in distance from the larger mass (as well as the smaller mass).
So, who owns locations that move about all the time? Who owns orbital locations that are continuously potential collision points for an infinite number of other orbits? And, if there are an infinite number of intersecting orbits, why aren’t there constant collisions?
Well, now my head hurts, and I regret starting this comment. It must be time for bed, now.
“You want to ‘clean’ an orbit, OK; Who will pay for that service? I’ve never understood the business model for space junk ‘cleaning’ without ownership.” and: “If you “clean” an orbit is it ours?”
The responsibility of damage caused by satellites in orbit or falling out of orbit and hitting the ground is that of the country that put the satellite into orbit. It says to in the Outer Space Treaty. So, does that mean that if a Starlink satellite causes damage it is the U.S. government’s responsibility to make the damaged party whole again, or is it SpaceX’s? And what about Soviet satellites; is Russia responsible as the major part of the Soviet Union, or are all the separated countries of the Soviet Union responsible, jointly?
Oh, the pain in my head is getting worse.
_________________
Saville wrote: “Often, with them [SpaceX], the first design is not THE design.”
It seems that their first designs tend to be development models, sometimes used as alpha or beta test or even for operations. SpaceX seems to be in the business of beating the competition before the competition catches up.
I once went hiking with a guide who got ahead of us early, and then waited for us to catch up. Once we arrived where he was resting and sat down to rest ourselves, he got up and continued ahead. He was always ahead of us, and seemed spryer, despite being such an old man. He may have been spryer, having hiked so much as a guide. SpaceX is doing something like this, only they get up and stay ahead before anyone gets to the resting place.
No resting on their laurels for SpaceX.
________________
From the linked article:
Is it the most efficient? All that mass has to be launched into orbit, including the mass of the solar arrays to power the orbital data center. Is that more efficient than building buildings on the ground to house the centers and building power plants and power lines from the plants to the centers?
________________
PS. I am having trouble posting this comment. The first error message said that my computer’s clock was set to the wrong time, and the subsequent two error messages said my email address does not exist. I am worried that this reflects upon my own existence. I had to reopen the post in a different tab to get it to post.
Sounds like the Dark Side Of The Moon is an excellent place to put the most advanced telescopes. Lots of incredible locations without local opposition, no atmosphere, and no interference of any kind from Earth. Regular sunlight is available for power. A lunar satellite is needed to relay communications. Sensitive instruments might have to be protected from sunlight. Telescopes and sensors, more advanced than the James Webb, on the Far Side of the moon would add to our knowledge (or confusion) about the cosmos.
Without being a Luddite I can still wonder at what multiple of a million satellites will my view of the night sky start to become clouded, and not natural. even if not using a telescope. Don’t take away my natural sky!
The reason I mentioned dead malls is that you don’t have to demolish them for housing and whatnot. They lend themselves towards usage—maybe light nuclear.
There is a TOS starship Enterprise bridge in one.
Hollywood builds a lot of sets that just have to be torn down….but you can leave them in dead malls as an attraction…lazer tag, whatever. There are businesses that may not make enough money to stand on their own that could be anchored there…hobby shops….one might even have a museum and get a local municipality keep the lights.
The idea is that revenue from a server farm could keep a facility open no matter what the foot traffic is.
Not far from me is an old garage/service station…the former location of Car Works. The property owner tried to gouge him. Car Works vacated…and now this wreck is empty. It is painted black…and the owner thinks he can get $2,500 a month in a depressed area.
Insane.
The owner did put a big electronic sign there…so there might be some revenue for him. There is an old theater that became home to a church. The landowner got greedy—and threw them out. A few years later…that church is back.
Better something than 100% of nothing. Alabama doesn’t really have home rule…so it is more difficult to just go after things…but property owners have to make allowances too.
There are a lot of things that should exist just because they make the planet more interesting—so perhaps Bohemians could pool resources with Big Data some way.
Sonic/ recharging stations for electric cars would seem a natural fit.
There is a right combination in there somewhere.
It seems to me, from the discussion, and news in general, that the Land Rush is here. Right now. There’s enough activity on orbit(s), and much more actualized hardware to come, that Space Law is about to explode, and those interested may want to get in front of this.
“Then came the lawyers, then came the rules”
‘Telegraph Road’ Knopfler 1982
There is no “Dark Side of the Moon.” There is a Lunar Farside. Just like the Nearside, it gets two weeks of light and two weeks of dark in each rotation, though the areas right near the poles are a bit of a special case.
The alleged perfect radio-quiet of the Lunar Farside has already been compromised. The PRC has a couple of relay sats orbiting Earth-Moon L2 in order to maintain communication between their Chang’e landers and rovers on the Lunar Farside and Earth. It won’t be long before equivalents of Starlink and GPS are also in lunar orbits to support future unmanned and manned exploration/industrial initiatives on the Lunar Farside.
“The Unburied Voices from Dark Side of the Moon”
(2015)
https://youtu.be/CJvSzJphgT8
(1:56)
Edward—
Big Bang Theory
“Sheldon, If You Were a Robot…”
https://youtu.be/b1xANg_TQ6k
(0:38)
john hare,
“Only a small fraction of the European population ever left for the Americas at any given time.”
Yes. quite disproportionately it was the ones with balls who came here – which explains both present-day America and present-day Europe.
To Blair
Please, God….no more lawyers…. enough of them crop up on The Space Review as it is.
“Yes. quite disproportionately it was the ones with balls who came here – which explains both present-day America and present-day Europe.”
Well, that, and how much of their best remaining human stock was killed off in 1914-18 and 1939-45. The British Empire didn’t die at Yorktown, but on the fields of the Somme and Passchendaele.