Satellite data centers might help Earth. But what about space?
A new space race is underway. But this one is not so much between nations as between technology companies.
The quest? Be the first to launch data centers into space.
The issues? According to some astronomers, it is the night sky itself.
Why we wrote this
While space data centers promise to alleviate Earth’s energy crisis, the next frontier of innovation depends on designing orbital infrastructure that is sustainable and avoids creating an orbiting “dump.”
This month, Elon Musk announced that his space company, SpaceX, had merged with his artificial intelligence company, xAI, with the goal of launching 1 million satellites that could work together to form extraterrestrial data centers. Google’s Project Suncatcher proposed creating data centers in space using lasers to transmit data between satellites in close proximity to each other. And late last year, a competitor named Starcloud launched a refrigerator-sized satellite into space — the first step toward its own orbiting data center.
None of this will be technologically simple. But tech companies say data centers in space could become more profitable than the massive warehouses of computer servers devouring land, water and electricity on Earth.
“Global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions, even in the near term, without imposing hardship on communities and the environment,” Mr. Musk said in a statement after announcing his merger. “By directly harnessing near-constant solar energy with low operating or maintenance costs, these satellites will transform our ability to scale computing. It’s always beautiful in space!”
However, some astronomers and economists worry that what might be beneficial to one environment could be harmful to another. There are already around 14,000 satellites in space. Sometimes they collide. They also generate space junk – from spent rocket boosters to loose bolts. On January 30, for example, one of Russia’s old spy satellites disintegrated into pieces.
Putting large data centers into orbit could compound these challenges. Over the past few decades, there has been growing awareness that humanity could repeat the mistake it made with the oceans, viewing space as an inexhaustible resource into which things can be dumped. Out of sight, out of mind. This has prompted scientists, economists and politicians to focus on solutions that facilitate technological progress while reducing pollution of orbital common spaces.
“More and more, people in this field … are starting to recognize that space is an environment, just like Earth is an environment,” says Akhil Rao, a former NASA economist.
Yet by 2024, data centers in the United States accounted for 4.4% of the country’s electricity consumption. A study last year by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute found that large data centers can consume 5 million gallons of water per day.
The consequences on the other side of the environmental toll are often less obvious. In 1978, astrophysicist Don Kessler co-authored an influential paper on the potential consequences of a buildup of satellites around the planet. Even without data centers in orbit, it gets crowded.
Astronomers are particularly concerned about the “Kessler effect.” This is when orbital collisions create space debris, which creates even more collisions and even more debris. In 2009, for example, a communications satellite collided with a decommissioned Russian military spacecraft. Every object was reduced to clouds of shrapnel that continued to travel around the planet. It takes about 11 years for gravity to bring smaller objects in lower orbits back to Earth.
There are currently 25,000 pieces of tracked debris in orbit, according to Jonathan McDowell, a recently retired astrophysicist from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. And that’s just what we can see. Smaller objects, such as frozen globules of propellant expelled from satellites, cross orbit faster than bullets, becoming a danger to astronauts during spacewalks. In December, a spacecraft docked at China’s space station was temporarily rendered unusable due to a damaged window after a suspected collision with space debris.
Unless cleaned, the space could eventually become too dangerous to navigate safely. It’s time to call the space trash trucks.
A British and Japanese company called Astroscale is expected to launch a debris-cleaning vehicle this year. It will direct decommissioned satellites and rocket boosters to a lower orbit so that they burn up on re-entry into the atmosphere. Other cleaning technologies are being tested. In 2018, a European RemoveDebris satellite managed to capture an object in space with a polyethylene net. A Swiss company called ClearSpace is developing a vehicle with claw-like robotic arms to hold on to satellites that are due to be discarded.
“China, which hasn’t had such a good record on space debris in the past, is actually the first country to have done a real study on space debris.
“In this case, in geostationary orbit, 36,000 kilometers above sea level, they sent a tug up to one of their dead navigation satellites and towed it to a higher orbit – what we call a graveyard – and released it there.”
There is a common interest in solving the tragedy of common spaces, says Dr. McDowell. An organization called the
The Interagency Space Debris Coordination Committee provides recommendations on best practices. But these are not binding. In violation of these directives, Russia conducted a military test five years ago aimed at blowing up one of its satellites.
Many commercial companies, such as Starlink, have followed good disposal practices, says Dr. Rao, a former NASA economist. And they are encouraged to do so. If companies leave dead satellites in space, then they create risks for their own active satellites.
Yet compliance can be tricky. Satellites become less responsive to commands over time. By the time satellites pass their expiration date, they are no longer able to deorbit.
Economists propose solutions based on incentives. For example, regulatory agencies in various countries could charge companies a tax as long as their satellite is in space. Agencies could issue a bond each time a satellite is launched. The bond is only refundable in the event of de-orbit. The money raised from the deposit could be used for space cleaning activities.
Mélanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Among those calling for change are astronomers. Satellites create light pollution in the night sky, says John Barentine, former public policy director for the International Dark Sky Association in Tucson, Arizona.
Man-made celestial objects, whose wings with solar panels make them look like metallic dragonflies, reflect sunlight back to the ground. They appear in astronomical images. Astronomers on the lookout for dangerous asteroids — like the one that crashed into Russia in 2013 with a shockwave that injured 1,500 people and damaged buildings — say the satellites’ glare at dawn and dusk also makes it harder to spot objects behind them. Data center satellites would be even bigger and brighter than conventional satellites.
“Thousands of bright satellites would actually degrade our ability to detect some of the threatening satellites. [near Earth objects]”, explains Olivier Hainaut, astronomer at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, by email.
Today, the average person doesn’t think much about space debris. This broader shift in thinking will happen, Dr. Barentine says, once the public understands how it affects them. That’s what motivated him to co-found the Center for Space Environmentalism last year. Its goal is to bring extraterrestrial issues to public attention. It often starts with telescopes in yards.
“Cultivating a closer relationship between humans and the cosmos through the night sky could be a way to increase appreciation of the space environment and its inextricable connection with our own surroundings,” says Dr. Barentine.
