Tens of thousands of artificial intelligence computers could soon orbit Earth, transforming the night sky and outnumbering visible stars.
Satellite Funding Reaches $1.11 Billion
Funding linked to orbital data centers totaled $197 million in 2025. It has climbed to $1.11 billion thus far in 2026, according to market research firm Quilty Space data.
SpaceX submitted a request to the Federal Communications Commission in January 2026. The company sought authorization to run as many as one million data-center satellites.
Four other companies have since filed for several hundred thousand more spacecraft. According to the Secure World Foundation, Starcloud has ambitions for 88,000 satellites. Blue Origin’s Project Sunrise has ambitions for 51,600 satellites. An application from a company called Orbital requests up to 100,000 satellites.
Roughly 19,000 satellites orbit Earth today. Full implementation of these proposed data-center plans would raise the number in low Earth orbit more than 50-fold.
SpaceX is designing a 72-GPU rack for orbit. Starcloud was picked for a federal mission-authorization pilot.
Operators might be requesting licenses for more hardware than they plan to launch immediately. Caleb Henry, Quilty Space’s director of research, said of the speculative nature of regulatory paperwork:
We’re at a point where people are tallying paper filings as if they are substantive and real, and we just don’t know that yet.
Caleb Henry, Quilty Space’s director of research
“They don’t want to have to bump the number higher up later on,” Quilty Space’s director of research said.
Experts Warn of Sky Pollution, Space Debris and Rocket Emissions
A new report titled “Space-Based Data Centers Roadmap: The Case for Caution,” published by the Innovation for Cool Earth Forum, warns that space data centers will likely become reality within the next few years before risks are understood.
The roster of contributing co-authors features David Sandalow, inaugural fellow at Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy; Alexis Abramson, dean of the Columbia Climate School; Theiija Bala, a J.D. candidate at Columbia Law School; Anne-Amélie Campant, a Schwarzman scholar at Tsinghua University; and Alp Kucukelbir, director of artificial intelligence and supply chain optimization at Amazon.
Abramson and Sandalow contributed chapters to the roadmap covering cooling, night skies, and astronomy. They warn that large orbital constellations could make satellites outnumber visible stars across much of the world, profoundly affecting observational astronomy and related research.
The report also says that if the United States military adopts the technology, orbital data centers could become potential targets in future space conflicts. Thousands of data centers traveling at 17,000 miles per hour also present a growing risk of collisions and dangerous space debris.
The authors question weight and economic claims made by operators. SpaceX has suggested in regulatory filings that a 100-kilowatt data-center satellite could weigh one metric ton. The authors estimate the power system alone weighs about 2.2 tons. These operations would rely on solar power. The massive fleet of rocket launches needed to position them in orbit would generate greenhouse gases and black carbon emissions.
If this is going to happen, it should happen slowly and with care. Not just launching lots and lots of these things and, kind of, seeing what happens. … There’s big risks.
David Sandalow, Columbia University
“Companies and policymakers should proceed with great caution,” Sandalow and co-authors wrote, urging authorities not to allow the deployment of large constellations until operational experience improves understanding and management of these hazards.