Elon Musk’s pie-in-the-sky plan to launch a massive orbital datacenter satellite constellation has taken a rapid step closer to reality with the Federal Communications Commission advancing SpaceX’s application for public comment, technical feasibility be damned.
SpaceX applied for permission to launch as many as one million satellites for its proposed orbital datacenter constellation on January 30, and the FCC’s Space Bureau has already accepted [PDF] the application for filing just five days later, though perhaps just so it can collect enough public comments to shoot the ridiculous idea down before it gets beyond the Muskian brainstorm stage (we inquired, but didn’t hear back).
According to Harvard astrophysicist and space object cataloger Jonathan McDowell, there are a paltry 14,518 active payloads in Earth orbit as of the end of January, 9,555 of them belonging to Starlink. Earth’s orbit is already crowded with fewer than 15,000 active satellites circling the planet, and tens of thousands more tracked objects when defunct spacecraft and debris are included, while large satellite constellations are increasingly interfering with astronomical observations from the ground and from space.
Increase the number of active satellites by nearly 6,800 percent and the risk of Kessler Syndrome – a situation where Earth orbit becomes so crowded a chain reaction of collisions creates so much space debris that portions of Earth orbit become unusable – starts to look quaint.
“One million satellites are going to be a big challenge for astronomy, especially as they are in higher orbits which is worse for us,” McDowell told The Register by email when asked about Musk’s orbital datacenter plan. SpaceX’s application [PDF] to the FCC calls for its datacenter constellation to be in multiple orbital shells in altitudes between 500 km (310 miles) and 2,000 km (1,242 miles).
“I think a constellation like this will absolutely be required to have a fleet of tow-truck satellites to remove failed ones to avoid Kessler,” McDowell added. Companies like Astroscale are developing such satellites, McDowell said. He also noted that the Chinese have demonstrated satellites with such capabilities.
As of last October, Starlink was estimated to be deorbiting and burning up roughly one to two satellites a day, which McDowell told us at the time could be a serious problem for the planet’s health. Those concerns have yet to be resolved, McDowell told us in our most recent conversation.
Is Musk’s mega datacenter constellation even feasible?
Musk said in a Monday blog post announcing SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI (and, by extension, financially-troubled post-Twitter social media platform X) that the 1M satellite orbital datacenter constellation is part of his bizarre dream to scale SpaceX to “make a sentient sun to understand the Universe,” and while that sci-fi dream didn’t make it into the FCC filings, one of Musk’s other delusions did.
“Launching a constellation of a million satellites that operate as orbital data centers is a first step towards becoming a Kardashev II-level civilization,” SpaceX said in its filing.
Kardashev II-level civilizations are able to harness the full power of their star, often theorized to be achieved by a Dyson sphere that completely envelopes a star at a habitable orbit.
In order to become a Kardashev Type I–level society, Earth would need to harness most of the energy available on the planet, a theoretical milestone often cited in discussions of long-term technological growth, before leaping to a Type II civilization capable of exploiting stellar-scale power.
Given that this is one of Musk’s fever dreams, concrete technical details of the satellite constellation remain sparse. SpaceX only noted in its filing that the satellites would rely on “high-bandwidth optical links” and claims the system could deliver on the order of 100 kW of power per metric ton allocated to computing, with traffic routed through SpaceX’s Starlink network for transmission to authorized ground stations.
Also featuring prominently in the FCC application is SpaceX’s struggling Starship super rocket, which has yet to do much more than occasionally perform a test flight between mishaps.
“With Starship’s ability to deliver unprecedented tonnage to orbit for AI compute, the capacity for intelligence processing in space could surpass the electricity consumption of the entire U.S. economy,” SpaceX said in its application, describing the craft as bringing “inherent efficiencies” to its ability to launch the constellation via Starship and scale it as demand requires.
In classic Musk fashion, there’s a lot in this proposal riding on assumptions and technology that doesn’t appear to actually exist yet.
“I think it’s unclear at this stage whether it’s feasible or not – but SpaceX seem to think it is,” McDowell told us.
It could all be a pipe dream, or it could be a sign that Earth’s orbit is about to get a lot more crowded and hazardous. The FCC is now soliciting public comments on SpaceX’s application with a deadline of March 6.
SpaceX didn’t respond to questions for this story. ®