Solar Powered Orbital Datacenters
A pattern emerges with fast followers
Recent coverage of a potential SpaceX IPO raises questions of what is next for an already expansive service portfolio. Let’s ignore subsidies and origin stories for a moment.
Orbital datacenters could take advantage of solar cycles, plentiful cooling, and laser optics. Of course, there are massive engineering challenges but these advantages are still attractive.
So, it makes sense that SpaceX would be uniquely positioned and partnered for expanding into orbital datacenters. Arguably, the SpaceX timeline supports that portfolio expansion.
The SpaceX timeline so far
- 2008 - After ~6 years, Falcon 1 commercial rocket achieves orbit
- 2014 - Internet satellites ideation is in motion
- 2015 - Google invests ~$1B
- 2017 - Prototype testing begins
- 2018 - Starlink is born
- 2020 - Microsoft partners for Azure Space with Azure Modular Datacenter (MDC)
- 2021 - Google partners for Google Cloud
- 2023 - Cloudflare partners for edge performance
- 2024 - Starshield (gov/mil/intel) expands as Starlink reaches 4M subscribers
- 2025 - Google’s investment reaches $8B in unrealized gains as Starlink surpasses 10k LEO satellites
If you consider the key partnerships, it also is reasonable to assume a space station that was commercial (private) could support logistics other pundits have called out as challenging. While privatization of the space industry has been discussed in depth elsewhere, licenses for spectrum are still being sold.
I prefer to think of SpaceX portfolio expansion to offer solar powered orbital datacenters as inevitable but also reasonable. The market will drive it from possible, to permissible, to sustainable, to repeatable, and eventually advisable.
Expect other companies to follow suit. Stay tuned.
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