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February 2, 2026<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n SpaceX plans to launch one million satellites to power orbital AI data center<\/p>\n Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX is set to massively expand its orbital footprint in a bid to power next-generation artificial intelligence<\/p>\n By Claire Cameron edited by Jeanna Bryner<\/span><\/p>\n Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX has filed plans with U.S. regulators to launch up to one million satellites into low-Earth orbit. Together, these satellites will act as an orbital data center to power artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n SpaceX currently operates between 9,300 and 9,600 of the 14,000 or so active satellites that are orbiting Earth; those SpaceX satellites provide the company\u2019s Starlink Internet service to millions of customers worldwide. The scale of the new proposal is far and away the largest of any planned satellite constellation. Including this filing, there are an estimated 1.7 million proposed satellites worldwide, according to a social media post from astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who tracks satellite constellations via his blog.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it is going to be extremely difficult to operate such a huge number of satellites safely,\u201d McDowell says. \u201cThis is a factor-of-100 increase over the already large number extant today, so a factor of 10,000 in the number of close approaches in the absence of careful station keeping.\u201d<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n SpaceX offers few details about the satellites, such as their size, specific orbits or even cost. But the company does say it plans to stick the satellites in \u201clargely unused orbital altitudes\u201d within an altitude range of 500 to 2,000 kilometers.<\/p>\n The spacecraft would be positioned to maximize time in the sun so that they could run on solar power. That\u2019s a major argument in favor of orbital data centers that has been frequently cited by AI leaders, including Musk, who also owns xAI, the start-up behind the chatbot Grok. The build-out could also boost SpaceX\u2019s plan to go public later this year\u2014and to potentially merge with xAI.<\/p>\n \u201cFreed from the constraints of terrestrial deployment, within a few years, the lowest cost to generate AI compute will be in space,\u201d wrote SpaceX in the filing. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Despite SpaceX\u2019s bullishness on the potential for AI, the proposal has been met with concern by some in the astronomy community. Peter Plavchan, a professor of astronomy at George Mason University, wrote in a social media post that whoever can occupy most of the usable orbits around Earth first will effectively prevent any other company or nation from hosting satellites in those orbits. \u201cIt\u2019s the ultimate first-mover territorial claim strategy in lieu of off-world space regulations,\u201d Plavchan wrote.<\/p>\n Editor\u2019s Note (2\/2\/26): This article was edited after posting to include comments from Jonathan McDowell and to correct the descriptions of his social media post and the number of active satellites that are orbiting Earth.<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. 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I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February 2, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm SpaceX plans to launch one million satellites to power orbital AI data center Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX is set to massively expand its orbital footprint in a bid to power next-generation artificial intelligence By Claire Cameron edited by Jeanna Bryner Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX has filed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[2110,1111,3164,1305,6709,480,1664,15519,73],"class_list":{"0":"post-43565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-center","9":"tag-data","10":"tag-launch","11":"tag-million","12":"tag-orbital","13":"tag-plans","14":"tag-power","15":"tag-satellites","16":"tag-spacex"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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