Musk’s ambition to build a space data center is unlikely to come true

“SpaceX has led the revolution in reusable spacecraft design with the Falcon 9 rocket. They also pioneered rocket launch frequency, but creating a ‘constellation’ of data center satellites in orbit is a fantasy,” Dr. Robert Zubrin, who designed the original prototype of the Space Launch System (SLS) super-heavy booster used in NASA’s Artemis mission, told NASA. Forbes.

Earlier this year, SpaceX announced a bold plan to ask for permission to launch one million satellites to deploy an AI data center in Earth orbit. According to documents submitted to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the satellites will exploit solar energy to operate and process data for AI, thereby “supporting the application of artificial intelligence for billions of people and ensuring humanity’s multi-planetary future”.

Elon Musk’s long-term ambition is to bring the Starship launch frequency to one flight per hour. The company is leading the global total number of rocket launches with an average of three per week by 2025, more than NASA or any other government space agency, but still far from Musk’s calculations.

Zubrin has known Musk for more than 20 years and is considered an unofficial space advisor to the American billionaire. He believes that SpaceX is wasting money, as giant clusters of data centers in space cannot compete economically with systems on the ground.

“Musk took steps in a steady way, like creating PayPal to get capital for SpaceX, or creating the Falcon 9 rocket into a money-printing machine as a launch pad for Starlink. Starlink made him richer and more powerful than any businessman on Earth,” Zubrin commented. “But plans to build huge and incredibly expensive arrays of AI data center satellites could lead to SpaceX’s financial collapse.”

The issue of solar cells comes first. Musk proposed powering satellite data systems with this type of battery, but Zubrin said that “solar energy in space is much more expensive than on Earth. According to this expert’s calculations, the solar panels on each Starlink satellite generate 20 kilowatts of power. At $2 million per spacecraft, that means one kilowatt of power costs $100,000. Meanwhile, rooftop solar panels currently cost $100,000. 3,000 USD per kilowatt, while thermal power is 1,000 USD per kilowatt.

“That means putting data centers on the ground is still a lot cheaper than on satellite systems in the long run,” Zubrin said.

In February, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also said that the intention to build a data center in space is “ridiculous” at present, because the technology is not yet complete. ChatGPT’s boss then affirmed that orbital data centers could become a reality in the future, but emphasized that there would still be a series of difficult barriers to overcome such as the cost of launching satellites and difficulties in repairing space equipment.

Brian Hurley, founder of digital consulting organization New Space Economy, also assessed the potential for putting data centers into orbit as “economically unfeasible” until the mid-2030s, when technologies improve. “Launch costs will hinder efforts to exploit solar energy on a large scale in space,” Hurley said.

The study “designing future, scalable AI infrastructure systems located in outer space” published by 9 Google experts late last year also points to this. The team believes that to reduce the barrier, SpaceX must succeed in making Starship fully reusable, with the average launch cost to Low Orbit having to be reduced to $200/kg to be able to achieve the same performance as a data center on the ground. With the current development roadmap, the team predicts that it will take about 2035 for SpaceX to reach its goal.

According to Hurley, Google’s results are only calculated based on theory. Meanwhile, the cost of building data center infrastructure in orbit is not just about electricity or launch equipment. “It is necessary to fully account for the costs incurred by the computing process, including initial investment, operations, upgrade cycles, reliability, financing, insurance, data transportation, maintenance, customer attraction and risks,” Mr. Hurley said. “These changes may take at least a decade to fully take effect.”

WSJ assessment, the problem is also related to the satellite launch process. On May 29, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket – a direct competitor of SpaceX – exploded during a test in Florida, causing the night sky to turn bright orange and nearby houses to shake.

“Unfortunate. Rockets are very difficult to build,” Musk commented on X on May 29 after the incident.

However, the attraction of AI with huge profits and attracting abundant investment capital still drives the trend of building data centers, including systems in outer space. “There’s still gold in those hills,” Zubrin commented, referring to some companies like Yahoo or Google that were successful during the early Internet boom. “The problem is who is getting them.”