Blue Origin joins orbital data center race, 51,000 satellites planned
What's the story
Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin has announced its entry into the race for space-based data centers. The company has filed plans with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for "Project Sunrise," a project aimed at establishing orbital data centers. The move is seen as a direct challenge to Elon Musk's SpaceX, which is already working on its own orbital data center project.
Project details
Project Sunrise aims to serve entire AI data center market
Blue Origin's Project Sunrise intends to cater to the entire AI data center market and empower US companies working with AI. The company said, "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."
Launch strategy
Proposed satellite constellation to use optical inter-satellite links
The proposal for Project Sunrise includes launching up to 51,600 satellites into "sun-synchronous orbits" between 500km and 1,800km from Earth. These satellites will use "optical inter-satellite links" or lasers to transmit data back to Earth. The communication will be with Blue Origin's upcoming Starlink rival TeraWave, which is yet to be approved by the FCC.
Size comparison
Bezos's vision for space-based data centers
While Blue Origin's satellite constellation is much smaller than SpaceX's proposed "up to 1 million" satellites for its own orbiting data center project, the number of satellites in Project Sunrise is still huge. The 51,600 figure far exceeds the current count of 15,000 active satellites in orbit. This ambitious plan shows Bezos's vision of humanity building "giant gigawatt data centers in space" to directly harness solar energy for AI workloads.
Market competition
FCC urged to approve Project Sunrise
In its FCC filing, Blue Origin has urged the Commission to approve Project Sunrise. The company believes that "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." This move is seen as a way to create a competitive environment that would benefit consumers and industry alike.
Opposition stance
Blue Origin previously opposed SpaceX's orbital data center plan
Interestingly, Blue Origin had filed a comment against SpaceX's orbital data center plan, saying it would "dramatically increase the difficulty for multiple constellations to co-exist relative to any realistic alternative." Amazon, another company founded by Bezos, also asked the Commission to deny SpaceX's one-million satellite proposal. The move was based on concerns that it was too speculative and could monopolize orbits around Earth.