{"id":809955,"date":"2026-10-22T03:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T03:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809955\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T03:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T03:56:13","slug":"corporate-orbital-data-centre-proposals-are-dangerous-for-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809955\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporate \u2018orbital data centre\u2019 proposals are dangerous for humanity"},"content":{"rendered":"

SpaceX has started a trend. More American companies are betting that they can beat the laws of physics<\/a> by launching thousands of enormous satellites to create orbital \u201cAI data centres\u201d with names like Cowboy Space\u2019s Stampede.<\/p>\n

Space commercialization has progressed to a point where numerous aerospace and technology experts view these ambitious corporate orbital agendas as entirely detached from practical reality<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Earth,<\/a><\/p>\n

How satellites could be distributed around Earth in megaconstellations.
\n (ESA)<\/p>\n

This technology is untested. Some of the proposed satellites are twice as large as the International Space Station<\/a>. Extrapolations for re-entry into our atmosphere suggest that if these satellites were launched, hundreds of them would drop large pieces on Earth every year.<\/p>\n

There are also many other serious safety<\/a>, atmospheric pollution<\/a> and light pollution<\/a> problems with these proposals.<\/p>\n

A licensing assembly line<\/p>\n

First, SpaceX filed a proposal for one million satellites<\/a>, invoking the hypothetical Kardashev scale<\/a> (originally proposed to measure an alien civilization\u2019s level of technological advancement) and other language that looked more like teenage fan fiction than a serious government document. <\/p>\n

The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) parroted this language<\/a> back when filing acceptance documents, stating: This satellite system will represent the \u201cfirst step towards becoming a Kardashev II-level civilization \u2013 one that can harness the Sun\u2019s full power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four other companies then filed copycat orbital data centre plans within weeks of SpaceX: Blue Origin (involving 51,600 satellites), Starcloud (88,000 satellites), Cowboy Space (20,000 satellites) and Orbital Compute (100,000 satellites).<\/p>\n

They all plan to launch from the U.S., which means they only need approval from the FCC \u2014 an agency that is increasingly mandated to approve anything and everything American in what it describes as a \u201clicensing assembly line<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This graph shows how congested it would be if five orbital data centre megaconstellations used their proposed rings of orbits. Data from Jonathan McDowell at https:\/\/planet4589.org.
\n (Samantha Lawler), CC BY-NC-ND<\/a><\/p>\n

For example, the FCC recently approved Reflect Orbital<\/a> for launch of a test orbital mirror. This despite thousands of comments in opposition from the general public, research papers by scientists demonstrating harm to ecosystems and human health and even a direct admission of possible permanent eye damage<\/a> by Reflect Orbital in its own documents.<\/p>\n

Large satellites landing on Earth<\/p>\n

The FCC licensing process is opaque. The unprecedented scale of the SpaceX million satellite request in particular at least made the FCC ask more public follow-up questions<\/a> than they usually do for satellite licensing. <\/p>\n

The most recent round of questions forced the companies to reveal the mass and cross-sectional area of their satellites, previously undisclosed. The answers, and their implications for re-entries and orbital safety, are truly alarming.<\/p>\n

SpaceX gives the mass of each of their one million proposed satellites as four tonnes, with other companies giving similar masses.<\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s Starlink is the most numerous mega-constellation thus far, with more than 11,000 satellites<\/a> in orbit as of October 2026. These satellites have five-year operating lifetimes<\/a> and on average one or two<\/a> car-sized satellites re-enter every day, depositing their mass in the upper atmosphere as metal vapour<\/a>. <\/p>\n

If they don\u2019t burn up completely, pieces may hit the ground<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One piece of a Starlink satellite has been discovered on the ground \u2014 by a Saskatchewan farmer in 2024<\/a>. Thanks to geography, land use and Starlink\u2019s chosen orbital distribution, Saskatchewan is the easiest place in the world to find space debris. A chunk of a SpaceX rocket also landed in a farmer\u2019s field there in the same year. <\/p>\n

Conservatively, assuming the Starlink debris is the only piece that made it to Earth, that would give Starlink a 0.05 per cent re-entry survival rate. If SpaceX\u2019s million satellite orbital data centre mega-constellation has the same re-entry survival rate, then 500 satellites would drop pieces on the ground every five years. <\/p>\n

SpaceX also recently stated in a New York Times article<\/a> that up to five per cent of the mass of some of their satellites could survive re-entry. That implies 500 satellites could each drop 400 pounds of debris over the five-year operating lifetime of the million-satellite orbital data centre.<\/p>\n

The casualty risk of each re-entry is low. But SpaceX plans to roll the dice a million times, and the consequences may land on our heads.<\/p>\n

Larger satellites, higher risks<\/p>\n

All the companies want to use the exact same narrow band of \u201csun-synchronous terminator orbits.\u201d Theoretically, these orbits allow constant access to sunlight. But due to Earth\u2019s axial tilt, that\u2019s only true for orbits above 1,400 kilometres altitude<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This means that you can either have continuous sunlight or low-latency communications (without much time lag), but not both. Notably, all of the filed orbital data centre proposals include much lower altitude orbits than 1,400 kilometres.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

Image of the proposed satellites with solar wing dimensions, presented to the U.S. FCC by Cowboy Space in a letter dated June 23, 2026.
\n (Cowboy Space)<\/a><\/p>\n

The cross-sectional areas listed for several companies\u2019 individual satellites are ludicrous. Cowboy released sketches<\/a> that imply each of their 20,000 satellites<\/a> will have a cross-sectional area more than twice as large as the International Space Station. <\/p>\n

This is the largest structure ever in orbit<\/a> \u2014 larger than a six-bedroom house, featuring six sleeping quarters, two bathrooms and a gym<\/a> \u2014 and was built from separately launched modular pieces.<\/p>\n

Much larger satellites mean much higher collision risks, and the risks are already high<\/a> with today\u2019s satellites and debris. <\/p>\n

\"Black<\/a><\/p>\n

Artist\u2019s digital image of International Space Station (ISS) passing over Florida.
\n (NASA)<\/p>\n

A sky filled with satellites<\/p>\n

The proliferation of commercial satellites has already changed the night sky for everyone in the world. Sometimes when I first glance up at the stars, I have a moment of dizziness as my brain scrambles to determine which points are moving and which are stationary. <\/p>\n

I was part of a team that predicted one in 15 visible points in the night sky would soon be a moving satellite<\/a>, not a star. Back in 2022, when that paper was published<\/a>, many thought we were being sensationalist or exaggerating. Now, I\u2019m convinced we were too conservative.<\/p>\n

The same team recently authored a paper showing what the proposed orbital data centres would look like<\/a> as they move across the sky in rings in the morning and evening.<\/p>\n

The future of low-Earth orbit and our shared night sky is straight out of a science-fiction novel. And it looks like the U.S. Federal Communications Commission will get the deciding vote on whether it\u2019s a dystopian one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SpaceX has started a trend. More American companies are betting that they can beat the laws of physics…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-809955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}