SpaceX files to form Orbital Data Center with satellites in cluttered orbit

Just as inferred by Elon Musk, SpaceX may launch satellites to form an orbital data center for its xAI undertaking and has filed with the FCC for a constellation permit.

If the idea pans out, the sats will be flying in some rather cluttered orbits in the 500-2000 km range above ground. SpaceX just recently lost a rogue satellite and calmed astronaut spirits down that its "current trajectory will place it below the ISS," basically admitting that the "anomaly on satellite 35956" made it hurtle uncontrollably through space before reentering Earth's atmosphere to burn.

Now, SpaceX is asking to launch a constellation of up to one million satellites to form an Orbital Data Center system. It cautions that the sats will be spaced out to "deconflict" when a control issue arises between them or future such orbital data center systems by competitors.

The orbital shells of the data center satellites would be executed with different hardware depending on their placement and operation and will communicate with optical links, just like the satellites in SpaceX's Starlink constellation that delivers fast residential Internet connectivity via a $350 Standard dish.

The Orbital Data Center system satellites would be much smaller, though, and SpaceX hopes to piggyback on the advantages that their location brings in terms of AI compute. These include solar power and releasing the pressure on the terrestrial grid put by AI data centers, but issues with latency, cooling, space traffic and debris control, as well as other inherent vices of cluttering the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) range, will remain.

According to SpaceX, "launching 1 million tonnes per year of satellites generating 100 kW of compute power per tonne would add 100 gigawatts of AI compute capacity annually, with minimal ongoing operational or maintenance needs."