Blue Origin has filed an application with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch up to 51,600 data center satellites. In addition to FCC approval, Project Sunrise requires a network that doesn't yet exist and a rocket that has barely flown.
Blue Origin has filed an application with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch up to 51,600 data center satellites. In addition to FCC approval, Project Sunrise requires a network that doesn't yet exist and a rocket that has barely flown.
According to documents released Thursday, Blue Origin is urging the FCC to support their project because the “insatiable demand for AI computing” makes orbital servers “an adjunct to ground-based infrastructure that introduces a new level of computing independent of terrestrial constraints,” The Register reports .
Blue Origin also claims that space data centers will “enable American companies that develop and use AI to thrive, accelerating breakthroughs in machine learning, autonomous systems, and predictive analytics for the benefit of society as a whole.”
At the same time, the company notes that it will be extremely difficult to build all the necessary AI infrastructure exclusively on Earth.
“Placing data centers in space will help overcome this ‘bottleneck,’” the company says. “The design advantages of solar-powered satellites, 24/7 access to solar power, no land costs or community relocation, and no grid inequities fundamentally lower the marginal cost of computing power compared to ground-based alternatives.”
However, these claims are being hotly contested. Opponents point out that the technology for orbital data centers does not yet exist, and they themselves are likely to be unreliable and therefore impractical.
Despite the criticism, Blue Origin intends to build orbital data centers. As part of the planned “Project Sunrise,” the company plans to launch “up to 51,600 satellites operating in sun-synchronous orbits at altitudes of 500 to 1,800 km.” The orbits will be inclined from 97 to 104 degrees, and each orbital plane will contain approximately 300 to 1,000 satellites.
The company says it will use optical communication channels (laser links) to connect satellites to each other, and will rely on another of its projects, the TeraWave space broadband service, to communicate with the ground.
Blue Origin has yet to launch a single TeraWave satellite, and the New Glenn rocket it plans to use to launch data centers into orbit has only flown twice. The company plans to launch the first of more than 5,000 TeraWave vehicles by the end of 2027, according to filings.
A significant portion of the application concerns the radio spectrum that Project Sunrise will use for communications, as well as a justification that these plans will not create inconvenience for other market participants.
Previously, dev.ua reported that Florida-based space startup Lonestar Data Holdings plans to place the first physical data center on the Moon .
Elon Musk has a different idea - he wants to create a production site on the Moon that will produce satellites with computing modules for artificial intelligence .
Nvidia also has ambitious plans: the company announced AI platforms for space data centers and geo-reconnaissance .
