Elon Musk Announces SpaceX Plans for Space-Based Data Centers Using Starlink V3 Satellites

Elon Musk on data centers in orbit: "SpaceX will be doing this

As artificial intelligence drives the need for vastly more computing storage and processing power, interest in space-based data centers has spiked. Although several startup companies, such as Starcloud, have begun to address this problem, the idea has also attracted the interest of tech barons. In May, it emerged that former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt acquired Relativity Space due to his interest in space-based data centers. Then, earlier this month, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos predicted that gigawatt-scale data centers will be built in space within the next 10 to 20 years. Now, Elon Musk, whose SpaceX owns and operates significantly more space-based infrastructure than any other company or country in the world, has also expressed interest in the technology. Scaling up V3 satellites After Ars wrote a story on the potential of autonomous assembly to construct large data centers in space, Musk responded on X by saying that Starlink satellites could be used for this purpose. "Simply scaling up Starlink V3 satellites, which have high speed laser links would work," he said on the social media site X. "SpaceX will be doing this." Musk's interest in space-based data centers significantly raises the profile of the nascent industry. Proponents of the idea say the advantages are clear: free, limitless power from the Sun and none of the messy environmental costs of building these facilities on Earth (where opposition is starting to grow). Critics say it is economically impractical to build these facilities in space and that supporters underestimate the technology needed to make it work. SpaceX's Starlink constellation has already defied some of this conventional wisdom by delivering high-speed broadband to millions of customers around the world while making a profit. So if Musk believes the Starlink architecture can be applied to data centers, it will be difficult for the industry to ignore. Interest is growing rapidly "The amount of momentum from heavyweights in the tech industry is very much worth paying attention to," said Caleb Henry, director of research at Quilty Space, in an interview. "If they start putting money behind it, we could see another transformation of what's done in space." The essential function of a data center is to store, process, and transmit data. Historically, satellites have already done a lot of this, Henry said. Telecommunications satellites specialize in transmitting data. Imaging satellites store a lot of data and then dump it when they pass over ground stations. In recent years, onboard computers have gotten more sophisticated at processing data. Data centers in space could represent the next evolution of that. Critics rightly note that it would require very large satellites with extensive solar panels to power data centers that rival ground-based infrastructure. However, SpaceX's Starlink V3 satellites are unlike any previous space-based technology, Henry said. A lot more capacity SpaceX's current Starlink V2 mini satellites have a maximum downlink capacity of approximately 100 Gbps. The V3 satellite is expected to increase this capacity by a factor of 10, to 1 Tbps. This is not unprecedented in satellite capacity, but it certainly is at scale. For example, Viasat contracted with Boeing for the better part of a decade, spending hundreds of millions of dollars, to build Viasat-3, a geostationary satellite with a capacity of 1 Tbps. This single satellite may launch next week on an Atlas V rocket. SpaceX plans to launch dozens of Starlink V3 satellites -- Henry estimates the number is about 60 -- on each Starship rocket launch. Those launches could occur as soon as the first half of 2026, as SpaceX has already tested a satellite dispenser on its Starship vehicle. "Nothing else in the rest of the satellite industry that comes close to that amount of capacity," Henry said. Exactly what "scaling up" Starlink V3 satellites might look like is not clear, but it doesn't seem silly to expect it could happen. The very first operational Starlink satellites launched a little more than half a decade ago with a mass of about 300 kg and a capacity of 15Gbps. Starlink V3 satellites will likely mass 1,500 kg.

Self-assembling data centers in space are becoming reality as Rendezvous Robotics partners with Starcloud -- Elon Musk chimes in that 'SpaceX will be doing this'

Starcloud is already launching an AI-equipped satellite featuring an Nvidia H100 GPU into space next month. Still, it plans to build a 5-gigawatt data center eventually, and Rendezvous Robotics can be key to achieving that. Speaking to Ars Technica, co-founder Phil Frank said, "Our mission is to build things that are going to be useful in space." Data centers have become the new gold rush in the wake of the AI boom, with proponents looking to expand compute at an exponential pace that outstrips our ability to build them. They also require massive amounts of energy and cooling, potentially with detrimental effects on our environment, which we only have one of. Space, on the other hand, is virtually infinite with a free fusion reactor at the center of our solar system that never shuts down -- starting to sound like a plan, right? Lots of other companies think so, too, and are convening to explore this landmark opportunity. The challenge at hand is more difficult than it might seem because, unlike satellites or telescopes, a data center is not inherently mobile. Historically, all our efforts have been focused on building them on land with sprawling construction sites that aren't feasible outside our atmosphere. Deploying a data center in space, therefore, requires ingenuity and efficiency on a scale never sought before -- this is where Rendezvous Robotics can help. The space construction firm was born at MIT last year and emerged from stealth this September with a pre-seed round. Fast forward a few months, and now, it has just signed an agreement with Starcloud, which itself is partnered with Nvidia, to explore data center opportunities in space. All three companies are part of a coalition rethinking how computing facilities can work in a new era. Rendezvous's flagship product is a tile-based autonomous module system that can assemble itself. Essentially, tiles with their own componentry, like battery cells, processors, and more, that use electromagnets to unfurl after being deployed as a payload from a spacecraft. What you see in the picture above are the tiles stacked on top of each other, ready to separate from the rocket and build themselves out. This tech is based on MIT Media Lab's Project TESSERAE, whose architect, Ariel Ekblaw, is one of the founders of Rendezvous Robotics. NASA has already tested TESSERAE, but the founders intend to turn it into a commercial venture, selling the technology to space architecture firms (such as Starcloud). Joe Landon, the last of three co-founders, clarified that "you have to either send a person with a wrench to space to assemble, use a robotic arm and plan out every movement of that arm, or design a complicated origami folding mechanical system, which limits how big you can build." Those three techniques are what Rendezvous's work can replace, and the tech is designed to be scalable to huge sizes, perfect for the extraterrestrial dreams of AI GPUs humming alongside our satellites. As part of this agreement, Starcloud and Rendezvous will work together to tailor the tiles for the 5-gigawatt data center specifically. Speaking of which, Starcloud has said its data center will use "super-large solar and cooling panels approximately 4 kilometers in width and length," which are astronomically larger than anything humans have built before. Ars Technica calculated that the International Space Station's solar arrays -- the largest ever deployed in space -- are only 0.005% the size of what Starcloud is planning to build. This is why autonomous assembly becomes a necessity; at this scale, conventional techniques (as if anything space-related were typical) lag eons behind, and AI money doesn't stop for anything. You can see Elon Musk's response to the original coverage above, claiming that Starlink's V3 satellites "will be doing this," and it seems to be relatively easy, too. The currently in-orbit V2 satellites cap out at a maximum data transmission rate of 100 Gbps, which the upcoming V3 satellites will increase to 1 Tbps. Through Starlink, SpaceX has already demonstrated it can deliver high-speed internet to even remote parts of the globe, so it's not entirely unprecedented that hyperscale data centers are on the world's richest person's mind. Unlike Starcloud and Rendezvous Robotics, though, we'll need more details here before speculating on what the future holds.

Elon Musk: Future Starlink Satellites Will Become Orbiting Data Centers

When he's not battling bugs and robots in Helldivers 2, Michael is reporting on AI, satellites, cybersecurity, PCs, and tech policy. Don't miss out on our latest stories. Add PCMag as a preferred source on Google. Starlink satellites are best known for supplying high-speed internet, but SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is suggesting they might one day also be used as orbiting data centers. Creating a network of orbiting data centers would be no easy task. But according to Musk, SpaceX already has a foundation with the company's next-generation V3 Starlink satellites, which are designed to beam gigabit internet. "Simply scaling up Starlink V3 satellites, which have high-speed laser links, would work," he tweeted. "SpaceX will be doing this." This comes amid growing discussions about building power-hungry AI data centers in space to mitigate the environmental impact on Earth. SpaceX's proposed V3 satellites require SpaceX's Starship vehicle for launch, which is still in testing. An earlier regulatory filing from the company indicates that each V3 could weigh up to 2,000 kilograms (4,409 pounds), or almost four times the current mass of the V2 Mini Starlink satellites. Musk's tweet suggests SpaceX could make them even larger to host more built-in computing. A customer could then remotely connect to the Starlink satellites -- which already possess high-speed connectivity -- and run AI training workloads. Musk's reference to the high-speed laser links is also notable. One key challenge with operating any data center in space is remotely connecting to it, especially when the data center is continually circling the Earth, in and out of view for customers on the ground. However, SpaceX has already developed a solution using the built-in laser system on existing Starlink satellites, enabling them to transmit data at up to 200Gbps, thereby creating a mesh network in space. We'll have to wait and see how SpaceX's data center plans shake out at a time when the company already has its hands full with developing the Starship vehicle and sending humans to the Moon and Mars. In the meantime, a startup called Starcloud plans to launch its own test satellite into space, which will carry an Nvidia H100 GPU for AI training. The goal is to build a network of orbiting data centers that can connect to Starlink while harnessing the Sun as a natural power source. The test satellite is scheduled to fly on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Nov. 2, Starcloud's CEO says.