Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin plans on challenging SpaceX not just in rockets, but also in the emerging race to build orbiting data centers.
On Thursday, Blue Origin filed plans with the Federal Communications Commission for “Project Sunrise,” the company’s own effort to operate space-based data centers.
“Blue Origin’s Project Sunrise will serve the broad AI data center market and enable US companies developing and using AI to flourish,” the company wrote. “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.”
According to the proposal, Project Sunrise calls for launching up to 51,600 satellites in “sun-synchronous orbits” between 500 kilometers to 1,800km away from the planet. To transmit data to Earth, Project Sunrise satellites will use “optical inter-satellite links” or lasers to connect with Blue Origin’s upcoming Starlink competitor, TeraWave, although it hasn’t received FCC clearance.
The filings offer little detail about the Project Sunrise satellites, such as their size, only to say they’ll use at least three antenna variations. Blue Origin’s constellation is far smaller than the “up to 1 million” satellite proposal for SpaceX’s own orbiting data center project. Still, the 51,600 figure far exceeds the 15,000 active satellites currently in orbit.
The news isn’t a surprise considering Bezos himself said back in October he envisions humanity building “giant gigawatt data centers in space” to directly harness the energy from the Sun to run AI workloads. “We will be able to beat the cost of terrestrial data centers in space in the next couple of decades,” Bezos said at the time.
(Photo by Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo / AFP via Getty Images)
His rival Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, has since been talking up his own approach to orbital data centers while also pointing to the alleged environmental benefits of shifting AI compute to space. Last month, the FCC was relatively fast in accepting SpaceX’s 1-million satellite plan for filing, kicking off a public comment process.
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In its own FCC filing, Blue Origin urges the Commission to clear Project Sunrise, pointing to the competitive benefits. “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,” the company wrote. “Blue Origin contends that this application will foster a competitive environment that will benefit consumers and industry alike.”
Another startup called Starcloud has also filed an FCC request to operate an 88,000 satellite constellation to support its own orbiting data center ambitions. Together, the proposals call for a monumental increase in satellites circling the Earth. SpaceX’s own 1-million satellite plan has triggered a flood of public comments from concerned groups, including astronomers and environmentalists worried about light pollution, space safety and the potential impact to the Earth’s atmosphere. Like SpaceX, Blue Origin plans on retiring the aging satellites “through atmospheric reentry,” letting them burn up as they de-orbit.
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How the FCC will rule on these applications remains the big question. In a bit of irony, Blue Origin filed a comment, objecting to SpaceX’s own orbital data center plan, saying it would “dramatically increase the difficulty for multiple constellations to co-exists relative to any realistic alternative.”
“The request for authority to deploy and operate up to one million satellites across the proposed shells and inclinations is at a scale profoundly disproportionate to any system ever proposed or authorized,” Blue Origin added while calling for the FCC to shoot down SpaceX’s request.
Amazon, another company that Bezos founded, also urged the Commission to deny SpaceX’s 1-million satellite proposal, arguing it was too speculative and risks monopolizing orbits around Earth. But the FCC’s Chairman Brendan Carr later publicly scolded Amazon in a tweet, saying it should focus on its own satellite internet efforts, rather than spend time criticizing SpaceX.
This week, SpaceX fired back at Bezos’ companies in its own rebuttal to the FCC. “While Amazon/Blue Origin claim to aspire to deploy constellations in the distant future, their lack of experience thus far shows in their simplistic arguments. Amazon/Blue Origin do nothing more than throw out naïve speculative claims that ignore reality,” the company wrote.
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Michael Kan
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I’ve been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I’m currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.
Since 2020, I’ve covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I’ve combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink’s cellular service.
I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. Earlier this year, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.
I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I’m now following how President Trump’s tariffs will affect the industry. I’m always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.
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