"At the start of the month, Elon Musk announced that two of his companies - SpaceX and xAI - were merging, and would jointly launch a constellation of 1 million satellites to operate as orbital data centers. Musk's reputation might suggest otherwise, but according to experts, such a plan isn't a complete fantasy. However, if executed at the scale suggested, some of them believe it would have devastating effects on the environment and the sustainability of low Earth Earth orbit."
"Musk and others argue that putting data centers in space is practical given how much more efficient solar panels are away from Earth's atmosphere. In space, there are no clouds or weather events to obscure the sun, and in the correct orbit, solar panels can collect sunlight through much of the day. In combination with declining rocket launch costs and the price of powering AI data centers on Earth,"
"Ahead of the billionaire's announcement, SpaceX filed an eight-page application with the Federal Communications Commission detailing his plan. The company hopes to deposit the satellites in this massive cluster in altitudes ranging between 500km and 2000km. They would communicate with one another and SpaceX's Starlink constellation using laser "optical links." Those Starlink satellites would then transmit inference requests to and from Earth."
Elon Musk announced a plan for SpaceX and xAI to merge and launch a constellation of one million satellites as orbital data centers. Supporters say space solar panels are more efficient without atmospheric losses, clouds, or weather, and that falling launch costs and Earth power prices could make orbital AI compute cheaper within a few years. SpaceX filed an eight-page FCC application proposing satellites between 500 km and 2,000 km linked by laser optical links, with Starlink relaying inference requests. The constellation would operate in sun-synchronous orbit. Experts express skepticism about cooling vast numbers of GPUs in near-vacuum and warn of severe environmental and low-Earth orbit sustainability risks.
Read at Engadget
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