In his talk, Musk showed an illustration of an \u201cAI Sat Mini\u201d that he said would initially be used in the constellation. Each satellite would provide 100 kilowatts of power for AI processors on board.<\/p>\n
The satellite is dominated by large solar arrays. The illustration, which Musk said was to scale, showed the satellite towering over SpaceX\u2019s Starship V3, which is 124 meters tall. If the spacecraft was shown at the same scale as Starship, it would be more than 170 meters long.<\/p>\n
The spacecraft also features a large radiator covering about 100 square meters to remove heat. Musk downplayed concerns about heat rejection, a common critique of concepts for orbital data centers, noting that the radiator is a small fraction of the size of the solar arrays.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor some reason there\u2019s been a bizarre debate about radiators in space,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s safe to say SpaceX knows how to do heat rejection in space with 10,000 satellites in orbit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cmini\u201d designation for the satellite, Musk said, reflects plans for future larger satellites with a megawatt of power.<\/p>\n
![\"AI](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/aisatmini-sunny.jpeg\")
A SpaceX illustration comparing terrestrial and orbital data centers. Credit: SpaceX<\/p>\n
He reiterated past claims that data centers in space will be more cost-effective than terrestrial data centers in as little as two to three years, citing abundant solar power and a lack of real estate constraints.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as the cost to orbit drops to a low number, it immediately makes extremely compelling sense to put AI in space,\u201d he said. \u201cIncreasing power on Earth becomes harder over time and more expensive over time, but in space it becomes actually cheaper and easier over time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Terafab initiative will start with an \u201cAdvanced Technology Fab\u201d in Austin, near an existing Tesla factory. Musk said the \u201cvast majority\u201d of the production from that facility will go to a chip called D3 optimized for use in space, designed to run hotter than terrestrial chips and with radiation protection.<\/p>\n
Musk did not disclose any schedules for developing the Advanced Technology Fab or other elements of the Terafab project, or for building and launching the AI Sat Mini spacecraft. SpaceX, in its FCC application, asked for waivers from standard deployment milestone deadlines for its orbital data center constellation since the Ka-band spectrum requested for it will be used on a non-interference basis with others.<\/p>\n
Musk also did not discuss costs for Terafab and the orbital data center constellation. Advanced chip fabrication factories can cost tens of billions of dollars to build. TSMC, a Taiwanese company that is one of the leading producers of advanced chips, is spending $65 billion to build three chip fabs in Arizona and announced a year ago plans to invest an additional $100 billion for several additional fabs and related facilities in the United States.<\/p>\n
Musk concluded his presentation with a video showing future data center satellites being built on the moon and launched using an electromagnetic mass driver. Those satellites, he said, would be needed to place a petawatt of computing in space. A petawatt is 1,000 terawatts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to live long enough to see the mass driver on the moon,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s going to be incredibly epic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk revealed more technical, but not financial, details about his company\u2019s plans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,59595,82,1935,2306],"class_list":{"0":"post-359766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-orbital-data-centers","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-sn","13":"tag-spacex"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}