SpaceX Proposes One Million Solar Powered Data Centers In Earth Orbit

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Powering data centers to keep up with the demand for artificial intelligence is a challenge. Some believe that, in the future, as much as 20 percent of all the electricity generated in the entire world may be needed to feed their voracious demand for electrons.

Fossil fuel advocates like US Energy Secretary Chris Wright are rubbing their greedy little hands with glee at the prospect of a network of new thermal generating stations powered by methane. Nuclear power aficionados see a golden opportunity to dot the countryside with more nukes. Fusion power startups are attracting bucket loads of cash. Everyone everywhere is reveling in the idea that AI will give good old fashioned thermal generation a new lease on life. Whoopee! Let’s party like it’s 1999!!

The issue with data centers — other than whether human civilization actually needs spiffy new technologies that will allow government goon squads to track every citizen everywhere all the time and arrest them if they dare to post thoughts online that do not parrot approved government information policies — is that there is not enough renewable energy available to supply them with non-polluting electricity.

Some countries, such as Ireland, have adopted national policies that require new data centers to arrange for their own power supply — 80 percent of which must be sourced from renewables. The US is going in the opposite direction by ordering older coal powered generating stations to remain in service even though the cost of the electricity they supply is far more expensive than wind or solar power backed by battery energy storage and they are extra polluting. This is what happens when greed and ideology take priority over commonsense.

SpaceX Data Center Plan

SpaceX thinks it has an answer. On January 30, 2026, it filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission to launch up to 1 million solar powered satellites that will serve as data centers for artificial intelligence.

According to Space News, the satellites would operate at altitudes between 500 and 2,000 kilometers, in 30 degree and sun-synchronous inclinations, to maximize time in sunlight for solar power generation. “By directly harnessing near-constant solar power with little operating or maintenance cost, these satellites will achieve transformative cost and energy efficiency while significantly reducing the environmental impact associated with terrestrial data centers,” the company said in the filing.

The application included few technical details about satellite size, mass, or specific orbital parameters. SpaceX said it plans to place the satellites in “largely unused orbital altitudes” within the proposed range. Satellites in higher sun-synchronous orbits, which would remain in sunlight more than 99% of the time, would meet the needs of applications requiring constant computing capacity. Those in lower inclination orbits would handle peaks in demand to balance system loads.

A key feature of the proposed system is reliance on inter-satellite optical links for communications among the satellites and with Starlink spacecraft, which would then relay data to the ground. The filing did not include a deployment schedule or cost estimate.

The Kardashev Scale

The filing is filled with bizarre claims that describe the planned satellite system as “the most efficient way to meet the accelerating demand for AI computing power.” But wait, there’s more. The applications goes on to describe the million-satellite system as “a first step towards becoming a Kardashev II level civilization — one that can harness the Sun’s full power” while also “ensuring humanity’s multi-planetary future amongst the stars.”

OK. Stop right there, as the song “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” would say. What is a Kardashev II-level civilization? To answer that question, we need to know about the Kardashev scale. CleanTechnica readers are all above average, but this level of mental derangement is far more than the usual blather from enterprises controlled by Elon Musk.

For the answer, we turn to Wikipedia, the online crowdsourced encyclopedia. Elon hates Wikipedia, which he claims is filled with lies and distortions he finds offensive. So he proposes to replace it with Grokipedia, which spews lies and distortions Musk is comfortable with, such as how wonderful Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich were. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say on this subject:

The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization’s level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is capable of harnessing and using. The measure was proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964 and was named after him.

Kardashev first outlined his scale in a paper presented at the 1964 conference that communicated findings on BS-29-76, Byurakan Conference in the Armenian SSR, which he initiated — a scientific meeting that reviewed the Soviet radio astronomy space listening program.

The paper was titled “Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations.” Starting from a functional definition of civilization, based on the immutability of physical laws and using human civilization as a model for extrapolation, Kardashev’s initial model was developed. He proposed a classification of civilizations into three types, based on the axiom of exponential growth:

A Type I civilization (planetary) is able to access all the energy available on its planet and store it for consumption.

A Type II civilization (stellar) can directly consume a star’s energy, most likely through the use of a Dyson sphere.

A Type III civilization (galactic) is able to capture all the energy emitted by its galaxy, and every object within it, such as every star, black hole, etc.

A civilization known as “Type I” has achieved a technological level close to the one attained on Earth at the time Kardashev’s article was submitted (December 1963), with a rate of energy consumption evaluated at about 4 x 1012 watts (W).

A civilization known as “Type II” would surpass the first by fourteen orders of magnitude, matching the entire power emitted by the Sun in about 3,200 years, i.e, Earth’s home star’s “output” at that time, predicted at 4 × 1026 W.

Finally, a civilization known as “Type III” reaches the milepost set in 5,800 years when humanity’s rate of energy consumption is predicted by the author to match the power emitted by the approximated 1011 stars in the Milky Way galaxy, which involves harnessing power of up to an estimated 4 x 1037 W.

According to Quora, “The Kardashev scale is fairly crude — and probably incorrect. But it provides a scaffold for thinking about, and measuring, civilizations vastly more advanced than our own.”

Approval May Take A While

The Verge claims the 1 million satellite number is unlikely to be approved outright and is probably meant as a starting point for negotiations. The FCC recently gave SpaceX permission to launch an additional 7,500 Starlink satellites, but said it would “defer authorization on the remaining 14,988” proposed satellites. Humans have currently put about 15,000 satellites into orbit around the Earth, according to the European Space Agency, and they are already creating issues with pollution and debris.

The filing also comes as Amazon — citing a lack of rockets — is seeking an extension on an FCC deadline to place more than 1,600 satellites in orbit. Meanwhile, SpaceX is reportedly considering a merger with two of Elon Musk’s other companies, Tesla and xAI (which already merged with X), ahead of going public.

What to make of all this? If such a system were ever to happen, we know it would make Elon Musk the sole arbiter of every byte and packet of data in the entire world. Information is power, and that information would make Musk the most powerful person in human history — a thought that should give us all pause as we consider the enormity of this proposal.

A fitting conclusion might well be a reprise of the saying that became associated with the presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater in 1964 — “In your heart, you know he’s nuts.”