SpaceX targets late 2027 launch for Nvidia-powered AI satellites with 120-kilowatt compute output

SpaceX aims to launch Nvidia-powered AI satellites by late 2027

SpaceX is targeting the fourth quarter of 2027 to launch its first Starmind AI satellites, which will be powered by Nvidia $NVDA chips, according to MarketWatch. CEO Elon Musk said the company aims to expand the program in 2028. Nvidia announced that SpaceXAI, the entity operating under SpaceX's AI infrastructure business, will build its planned first-generation Starmind satellite around an optimized Nvidia Vera Rubin NVL72 rack-scale system. The same computing architecture powers SpaceXAI's terrestrial AI factories, which run the Grok AI model. Alongside the satellite announcement, Nvidia said SpaceXAI will deploy Nvidia Vera CPUs to handle the orchestration, code execution, and data processing that surrounds AI model inference. Vera features 88 Nvidia-designed Olympus cores and delivers up to 1.2 terabytes per second of memory bandwidth, the company said. SpaceXAI president Mike Nicolls said in a statement that the chip "gives us the CPU performance and memory bandwidth to run enormous amounts of orchestration, code and data processing while keeping GPUs doing what they do best." SpaceXAI is also expanding its AI infrastructure with the broader Nvidia Vera Rubin platform as it moves toward gigawatts of computing capacity, according to Nvidia. The Starmind satellite program sits within a larger orbital computing initiative that SpaceX has described in detail for investors ahead of its IPO. The first-generation satellite, also referred to as AI1, measures 70 meters tip to tip and is designed to sustain 120 kilowatts of compute output on average, with solar panels rated at 150 kilowatts. Thermal management relies on a liquid-radiator architecture. SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen confirmed that Nvidia components will power the first units. The late-2027 target Musk described on Monday represents an acceleration from the "as early as 2028" deployment window SpaceX disclosed in its IPO prospectus. Those earlier missions would serve as proof-of-concept flights rather than the start of revenue-generating service. SpaceX has filed to deploy up to one million data center satellites and has struck deals with Google $GOOGL and Anthropic to sell access to its compute infrastructure. Ian Buck, Nvidia's vice president of hyperscale and high-performance computing, said in a statement that SpaceXAI is "taking this architecture from massive AI factories to the next frontier of computing in orbit."

SpaceX Plans First AI Satellite Launches for Late 2027

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. designs, manufactures, launches, and operates products and services built on technologies, including rockets and spacecraft. The Company's segments include Space, Connectivity, and AI. Its Space segment designs, manufactures, and launches reusable rockets to provide access to space. Its Connectivity segment operates broadband data and communications network powered by approximately 10,200 Starlink broadband and mobile satellites in Low-Earth orbit, delivering connectivity to consumer, enterprises, and government customers over 167 countries, territories, and other markets. In its AI (artificial intelligence) segment, it operates a vertically integrated AI platform spanning its truth-seeking frontier model Grok, AI solutions for consumer and enterprise customers, X-its real-time information, entertainment, and free-speech platform and AI computational infrastructure.