Blue Origin asks FCC for permission to launch 51,600 satellites as space data centers for AI

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin enters the space data center game | TechCrunch

Blue Origin, the space conglomerate founded by Amazon chair Jeff Bezos, has asked the U.S. government for permission to launch a network of more than 50,000 satellites that will act as a data center in orbit. In a March 19 document filed with the Federal Communications Commission, Blue Origin's attorneys described "Project Sunrise" as a network of spacecraft that will perform advanced computation in orbit to "ease mounting pressure on U.S. communities and natural resources by shifting energy - and water-intensive compute away from terrestrial data centers." Blue Origin's filing did not describe its plans for the satellites in detail, so it's hard to know how much computing power the company is aiming to generate in space. It does note that Blue Origin plans to use another satellite constellation it is seeking to build, called Terawave, as a high-throughput communications backbone for the data satellites. Shifting massive compute to space is attractive because solar energy is free to harvest and, once in orbit, there are fewer regulations restricting corporate activities. Entrepreneurs behind these projects envision a future where AI tools are widespread and imagine that much of the inference work behind them will be outsourced to orbit. Several companies are already pursuing the idea. SpaceX has filed for permission to launch a million satellites to be used as a distributed data center, while the startup Starcloud has proposed a network of 60,000 spacecraft to the FCC. Google is also developing a concept for a space data center called Project Suncatcher, which will see its partner Planet Labs launch two demo spacecraft next year. While excitement about space data centers is high in the tech world, the economics of these projects remain challenging. Technology for cooling processors and communicating between spacecraft with powerful lasers will need to be developed and manufactured as cheaply as possible, while scientists are still determining how well advanced chips work on different tasks while exposed to the high radiation environment in space. A critical area is the cost to launch these computers into orbit, and most are betting that the price of reaching orbit will fall due to SpaceX's Starship rocket, which is still under development and may see its first 2026 launch next month. This is an area where Blue Origin, long an also-ran in the rocket business, may have an advantage. Its New Glenn rocket, which first flew last year, is one of the most powerful operational launch vehicles on Earth. If the company can start flying and reusing them at a regular pace, Blue Origin could see the same kind of benefits from vertical integration that allowed SpaceX to dominate space telecommunications with its Starlink network. Beyond economic and technological challenges, the space environment itself may prove an obstacle. Space in key orbits close to the Earth is getting ever more congested, and adding tens or hundreds of thousands of new satellites will increase concerns about orbital collisions. Meanwhile, burning up thousands of satellites in orbit after they become obsolete, as is standard practice in the industry today, is likely to affect the chemistry of the upper atmosphere, with researchers fretting about harms to the ozone layer. The filing also lacked details about timing, but experts tell TechCrunch that such projects are unlikely to come to fruition until the 2030s.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin reveals 51,600 satellite space data center plans -- Project Sunrise will operate in sun-synchronous orbits between 500-1,800km in altitude

Bezos rocket firm's FCC filing asserts its space clutter will serve the public interest by removing roadblocks in AI and cloud services provision. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has revealed its plans to launch up to 51,600 satellites to create a data center constellation in space. The filing was posted for the public to view by the FCC on Thursday (via The Register), with explanations of Blue Origin's goals and details of how 'Project Sunrise' is of benefit to the public interest. Blue Origin's application to the FCC starts by sketching out the scale of the proposed constellation. Project Sunrise "will consist of up to 51,600 satellites operating in circular, sun-synchronous orbits from 500-1,800 km in altitude, with inclinations between 97 degrees and 104 degrees, with each orbital plane containing approximately 300-1,000 satellites," a rather technical description reads. The constellation satellites will feature at least three antenna variants to address uniform coverage requirements. But, the filing goes on to elaborate that optical links will be used extensively between the satellites to reduce dependence on radio spectrum, with Earthbound traffic routed through the firm's TeraWave system and other mesh backhaul networks to the ground. Of course, this colossal project and undoubted billions in investment are destined to complement the insatiable demand for Artificial Intelligence data processing on Earth with space-based data centers. Project Sunrise will "make AI computer more accessible," argues the FCC filing, by ensuring the "societal benefits of AI" aren't bottlenecked by terrestrial data centers. It is hard to deny that the efficiencies of always-on solar power and the removal of land use/costs are attractive aspects of this space-based project. But satellite constellations will have their own uniquely significant costs. Clearly, it will not be cheap to make this complex, custom hardware and send it to space. Then it will require servicing and maintenance - for example. As this is an FCC filing, Blue Origin also appealed to the regulator by insisting that Project Sunrise will "use spectrum efficiently and operate on a non-interference basis." In case you are curious about the spectrum, the constellation will use the 18.8-19.3 GHz (space-to-Earth) and 28.6-29.1 GHz (Earth-to-space) bands. Blue Origin also states that "safety is core" to the project. That's a little reassuring after reading recent reports about satellite proliferation, density-induced near-misses, and terminal anomalies. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.

Blue Origin Joins the Race for Orbital Data Centers With 51K Satellite Plan

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin plans on challenging SpaceX not just in rockets, but also in the emerging race to build orbiting data centers. On Thursday, Blue Origin filed plans with the Federal Communications Commission for "Project Sunrise," the company's own effort to operate space-based data centers. "Blue Origin's Project Sunrise will serve the broad AI data center market and enable US companies developing and using AI to flourish," the company wrote. "By adding compute capacity to orbit, the constellation will expand total industry capacity and introduce new sources of clean power for compute workloads while preserving terrestrial infrastructure for uses that cannot be replicated in space." According to the proposal, Project Sunrise calls for launching 51,600 satellites in "sun-synchronous orbits" between 500 kilometers to 1,800km away from the planet. To transmit data to Earth, Project Sunrise satellites will use "optical inter-satellite links" or lasers to connect with Blue Origin's upcoming Starlink competitor, TeraWave, although it hasn't received FCC clearance. The filings offer little detail about the Project Sunrise satellites, such as their size, only to say they'll use at least three antenna variations. Blue Origin's constellation is far smaller than the "up to 1 million" satellite proposal for SpaceX's own orbiting data center project. Still, the 51,600 figure far exceeds the 15,000 active satellites currently in orbit. The news isn't a surprise considering Bezos himself said back in October he envisions humanity building "giant gigawatt data centers in space" to directly harness the energy from the Sun to run AI workloads. "We will be able to beat the cost of terrestrial data centers in space in the next couple of decades," Bezos said at the time. His rival Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, has since been talking up his own approach to orbital data centers while also pointing to the alleged environmental benefits of shifting AI compute to space. Last month, the FCC was relatively fast in accepting SpaceX's 1-million satellite plan for filing, kicking off a public comment process. In its own FCC filing, Blue Origin urges the Commission to clear Project Sunrise, pointing to the competitive benefits. "Encouraging diverse participation in the space-based data center market will catalyze advancements in technology and resource efficiency, ultimately leading to more robust and sustainable solutions," the company wrote. "Blue Origin contends that this application will foster a competitive environment that will benefit consumers and industry alike." Another startup called Starcloud has also filed an FCC request to operate an 88,000 satellite constellation to support its own orbiting data center ambitions. Together, the proposals call for a monumental increase in satellites circling the Earth. SpaceX's own 1-million satellite plan has triggered a flood of public comments from concerned groups, including astronomers and environmentalists worried about light pollution, space safety and the potential impact to the Earth's atmosphere. Like SpaceX, Blue Origin plans on retiring the aging satellites "through atmospheric reentry," letting them burn up as they de-orbit. How the FCC will rule on these applications remains the big question. In a bit of irony, Blue Origin filed a comment, objecting to SpaceX's own orbital data center plan, saying it would "dramatically increase the difficulty for multiple constellations to co-exists relative to any realistic alternative." "The request for authority to deploy and operate up to one million satellites across the proposed shells and inclinations is at a scale profoundly disproportionate to any system ever proposed or authorized," Blue Origin added while calling for the FCC to shoot down SpaceX's request. Amazon, another company that Bezos founded, also urged the Commission to deny SpaceX's 1-million satellite proposal, arguing it was too speculative and risks monopolizing orbits around Earth. But the FCC's Chairman Brendan Carr later publicly scolded Amazon in a tweet, saying it should focus on its own satellite internet efforts, rather than spend time criticizing SpaceX. This week, SpaceX fired back at Bezos' companies in its own rebuttal to the FCC. "While Amazon/Blue Origin claim to aspire to deploy constellations in the distant future, their lack of experience thus far shows in their simplistic arguments. Amazon/Blue Origin do nothing more than throw out naïve speculative claims that ignore reality," the company wrote.

Blue Origin applies to launch 51,000 datacenter satellites

'Project Sunrise' needs a network that doesn't exist, a rocket that's hardly flown, and FCC approcal Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin has applied to launch up to 51,600 datacenter satellites. A Thursday filing argues that the US Federal Communications Commission should approve Blue Origin's plans because "insatiable demand for AI workloads" means orbiting servers represent "a complement to terrestrial infrastructure by introducing a new compute tier that operates independently of Earth-based constraints." Blue Origin also argues that datacenters in space will "enable U.S. companies developing and using AI to flourish, accelerating breakthroughs in machine learning, autonomous systems, and predictive analytics in support of broad societal benefit." But the company says it will be hard to build all the AI infrastructure we need on Earth. "Space-based datacenters can help break this bottleneck," the company claims. "The built-in efficiencies of solar-powered satellites, always-on solar energy, lack of land or displacement costs, and nonexistent grid infrastructure disparities, fundamentally lower the marginal cost of compute capacity compared to terrestrial alternatives." Those claims are hotly contested on grounds that the technology for orbiting datacenters doesn't exist and will likely be unreliable and therefore impractical. Blue Origin wants to build orbiting datacenters anyway and says its planned "Project Sunrise" will see it launch "up to 51,600 satellites operating in sun-synchronous orbits from 500-1,800 km, with inclinations between 97 degrees and 104 degrees, with each orbital plane containing approximately 300-1,000 satellites." The company says it will use optical links to connect satellites to each other and rely on another of its planned projects - the TeraWave space broadband service - to connect to terra firma. Blue Origin has yet to launch a single TeraWave satellite and has only flown the New Glen rocket it plans to use for datacenter satellite launches twice. The filing says the company plans to launch the first of its planned 5,000-plus TeraWave orbiters before the end of 2027. Much of the filing concerns the spectrum Project Sunrise will use to communicate, and how its plans won't inconvenience any other stakeholders. But it also points out that Blue Origin hasn't filed documentation with the International Telecommunications Union, which also has a say in these matters. Project Sunrise is therefore likely a long way over the horizon. The Register suggests it may lose its name before it launches, as Australian airline Qantas uses the same moniker for its plan to fly non-stop from Sydney and Melbourne to New York and London, journeys that will take around 20 hours. ®

Blue Origin also wants to put AI data centers in space

Blue Origin has revealed its plans for an orbital AI data center system in a new filing with the Federal Communications Commission. The company has asked the agency for permission to deploy 51,600 satellites, as reported by the Wall Street Journal and SpaceNews. Called Project Sunrise, the initiative aims to launch and operate a constellation of satellites that can deliver computing capacity for artificial intelligence uses. Project Sunrise's satellites will be placed in sun-synchronous orbits at altitudes between 311 and 1,118 miles. Each layer in the constellation will have between 300 to 1,000 satellites and will be approximately 3 to 6 miles apart. In its filing, Blue Origin said the constellation would complement terrestrial data centers. The satellites will, of course, will be fitted with solar panels to be able to gather energy from the sun. Blue Origin explained that the orbital AI data center will lower the "marginal cost of compute capacity compared to terrestrial alternatives," because the satellites will be powered by the sun, won't need land and won't need grid infrastructure. Project Sunrise will "enable US companies developing and using AI to flourish, accelerating breakthroughs in machine learning, autonomous systems and predictive analytics," Blue Origin added. By filing its request with the FCC, Blue Origin has officially joined SpaceX in the list of companies looking to build an AI data center in space. In January, SpaceX asked the FCC for permission to deploy 1 million satellites for its constellation. The company justified at the time that "orbital data centers are the most efficient way to meet the accelerating demand for AI computing power."