Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin is also aiming for the race for orbital data centers.
In a document filed on March 19 with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the authority regulating the communications sector in the United States, Blue Origin requested authorization to launch and operate Project Sunrise, a satellite constellation that would provide computing services in orbit.
The aerospace company founded by Amazon’s founder argues that data centers in space “will enable U.S. companies developing and using artificial intelligence to thrive, accelerating discoveries in machine learning, autonomous systems, and predictive analytics to support broad social benefit.”
As noted by the Wall Street Journal, Bezos’s aerospace company thus joins Elon Musk’s SpaceX and the startup Starcloud, which have already applied to the FCC for authorization to launch satellites for artificial intelligence.
In February, Elon Musk announced the acquisition of his artificial intelligence startup xAI by his aerospace company, aiming—among other goals—to develop data centers for artificial intelligence in orbit, leveraging solar energy and reduced launch costs. At the end of January, SpaceX had filed a request with the FCC for a constellation of up to one million satellites for orbital data centers.
Alongside Musk’s initiatives, other companies are working on designing space data centers that, according to them, could eliminate some of the complexities of terrestrial data centers, such as overheating. Last fall, in an interview with FOX News, Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated: “In this spirit, one of our goals on the Moon is to understand how one day we will have data centers in space to make the best use of solar energy.”
All the details.
BLUE ORIGIN’S PROJECT SUNRISE
According to the document filed Thursday, the FCC “should approve Blue Origin’s plans because the ‘insatiable demand for artificial intelligence workloads’ means that servers in orbit represent ‘a complement to terrestrial infrastructure, introducing a new level of processing that operates independently of terrestrial constraints.'”
Blue Origin intends to build data centers in orbit and states that its “Project Sunrise” involves launching “up to 51,600 satellites operating in sun-synchronous orbits between 500 and 1,800 km, with inclinations between 97 and 104 degrees, with each orbital plane containing about 300-1,000 satellites.”
AMBIZIOUS TIMELINE
According to the submitted documentation, Blue Origin plans to launch the first of its over 5,000 TeraWave orbiters by the end of 2027.
CONNECTED TO THE OTHER TERAWAVE PROJECT
The company states it will use optical links to connect the satellites to each other and will rely on another of its planned projects, the TeraWave space broadband service, to connect to Earth.
At the end of January, Blue Origin also announced a plan to deploy 5,408 satellites in space for a communications network that will serve data centers, as well as governments and businesses, entering a satellite constellation market dominated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX with the low Earth orbit Starlink satellite constellation.
However, unlike Starlink, the network planned by Blue Origin appears off-limits to individual consumers. Unlike Amazon Leo and SpaceX’s Starlink, TeraWave is designed as a tailored service, not aimed at the consumer market, and would be reserved for an estimated audience of about 100,000 customers worldwide.
But so far Blue Origin has not yet launched a single TeraWave satellite and has used the New Glenn rocket, which it intends to employ for Project Sunrise launches, only twice.
THE STRATEGY
“Space data centers can help overcome this bottleneck,” says the company led by Bezos. “The intrinsic efficiency of solar-powered satellites, the always-available solar energy, the absence of land or transportation costs, and the absence of disparities in network infrastructure drastically reduce the marginal cost of computing capacity compared to terrestrial alternatives.”
Yet, these claims are strongly contested, as the technology for data centers in orbit does not exist and will likely be unreliable and therefore impractical, highlights the Register.
THE CHALLENGES
Orbital data centers present numerous technical obstacles, according to space engineers, notes the WSJ. Making systems cost-competitive compared to traditional ground infrastructure remains a significant hurdle. (For more, here is the episode of the Spaziale! podcast by Startmag Who will govern artificial intelligence in orbit?).
The “Project Sunrise” requires a nonexistent network, a rocket that has flown very little, and FCC approval, the publication summarizes, also noting that the document states Blue Origin has not submitted documentation to the International Telecommunication Union, which has a say in these matters.
A sign that the race to develop energy and computing systems in orbit to support the expansion of artificial intelligence applications is only just beginning.
