Jeff Bezos throws his hat in the ring for an orbital data center megaconstellation, too

A little more than a month ago, SpaceX founder Elon Musk put down a marker of his intent to saturate low-Earth orbit with up to 1 million satellites. Its purpose? Provide always-on data center services around the planet.

Now, Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos has done something similar with a filing to the Federal Communications Commission of his own, proposing a constellation of up to 51,600 satellites operating in Sun-synchronous orbits at altitudes ranging from 500 to 1,800 km. Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, sought the authority to do this and is calling the constellation “Project Sunrise.”

In its filing, Blue Origin argues that terrestrial AI-based data centers will face difficulties scaling up to meet computing demand.

“The insatiable demand for AI workloads has led to the rapid buildout of terrestrial data centers globally,” the filing states. “Space-based data centers will be a complement to terrestrial infrastructure by introducing a new compute tier that operates independently of Earth-based constraints.”

A gold rush for land in space

In addition to SpaceX and Blue Origin, Starcloud, a smaller company backed by Nvidia, has also filed an application for an orbital data center megaconstellation of 88,000 satellites.

The new filings for these massive constellations—which none of these companies are prepared to populate just yet with actual satellites—likely represent a gold rush of sorts. Although low-Earth orbit is very large, there are only a select few orbits that provide continuous or nearly continuous sunlight (most orbits have periods of darkness when the Earth is between the satellite and the Sun).

Like SpaceX, Blue Origin is targeting these special polar orbits.

Its application seeks to put satellites in orbital inclinations between 97 and 104 degrees. These are known, generally, as Terminator Sun-synchronous orbits because the satellites remain in essentially permanent sunlight year-round. There is limited real estate there, even in outer space, and these regulatory filings are claims by the space companies to this territory.

Make that three for Jeff

This would be Bezos’ third megaconstellation. Amazon finally began launching its first satellites for the Amazon Leo (formerly Project Kuiper) constellation last year. This is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, which will provide global Internet from low-Earth orbit. Then, in January, Blue Origin announced plans to launch the TeraWave constellation in low-Earth and medium-Earth orbit to provide high-speed connectivity for enterprise customers.