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Space Government

Orbital Datacenter Plans Need an Environmental Review, FCC Told (theregister.com) 117

Environmental groups want America's FCC "to slam the brakes on orbital datacenters," writes The Register.

They're arguing for an environmental impact assessment for what could be 1 million satellites: Earthjustice, acting on behalf of DarkSky International, Environment America, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), filed a petition this week... The filing doesn't target any single company. Instead, it asks the regulator to put the entire emerging orbital datacenter sector on hold while it assesses the cumulative effects of proposals from SpaceX, Starcloud, Blue Origin, Cowboy Space, and any similar applications that follow. According to the petition, those proposals collectively seek "well over a million datacenter satellites" in low Earth orbit.... " increasing the existing volume of satellites in low-earth orbit by multiple orders of magnitude."

The groups argue that the FCC is trying to apply licensing rules written for much smaller satellite constellations to an entirely new class of infrastructure. "If ever a situation warranted a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement [PEIS], it is this one," the petition says. It argues that a single review would allow the agency to examine "the risks, alternatives, needs, costs, and impacts of this sudden transformation of Earth's exosphere" before deciding whether any of the projects are in the public interest. The petition raises concerns about rocket launch emissions, pollutants released as satellites burn up during atmospheric reentry, depletion of the ozone layer, orbital debris, light pollution, impacts on wildlife, and interference with astronomy.

It also argues that the combined effects of these constellations cannot be understood by evaluating applications one at a time.... "It is difficult to imagine a better example of multiple projects presenting essentially identical impacts and risks that compound synergistically and cumulatively than the present proposals..." The petition argues that the FCC's current approach, which generally treats satellite licenses as categorically excluded from detailed environmental review, is no longer fit for proposals measured not in dozens or thousands of spacecraft but in hundreds of thousands and, potentially, millions.

If the FCC agrees, orbital datacenter operators will have a mountain of paperwork to clear before sending their hardware skyward.

Orbital Datacenter Plans Need an Environmental Review, FCC Told

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  • by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Saturday July 11, 2026 @03:46PM (#66233308) Homepage

    I'm really not seeing what the advantage is of putting data centers in space that can't be accomplished less expensively down here on good old terra firma. That was the same problem with solar roadways. You want to put up solar panels? Great - we've yet to run out of places you can put them where they aren't going to be driven over by cars.

    I realize there's some NIMBYism over data centers lately, but surely putting them somewhere in the middle of nowhere where nobody will complain is still orders of magnitude cheaper than space. Space is really, really not cheap.

    • If I had to guess, cooling. I canâ(TM)t imagine orbital data centres sucking up our water
      • by bjoast ( 1310293 )
        Until they invent orbital straws.
      • by Anonymous Coward

        Cooling would actually be more of a problem than on the surface. A vacuum is a perfect insulator, the heat has no where to go. It's a huge problem with spacecraft, they get too hot because they can't get rid of heat.

        • Satellites can get rid of heat with radiators placed in the shade. They do add to mass and cost though.

          • Satelites aren't running racks of heat producing computer equipment.
            • by Hodr ( 219920 )

              They literally are though.. Wait, do you think satellites generate RF energy through magic? Their networking equipment doesn't generate heat?

              • by lxnt ( 98232 )

                It's one thing to get rid of say 50 kw of heat. Expensive, but can be done.

                When you get into megawatts, well. Very expensive and will require shitton of launch capacity.

                If one is so bent on having datacenters well fine, build them on a shore somewhere ocer 50th latitude closer to the poles, cool with seawater from the ocean. This way the entire earth serves as a very efficient radiator as it always had.

                Also one would need to get those megawatts somewhere. Megawatt solar panel in space would cost idk.. mor

              • The heat they generate is massively different to the heat a datacenter generates. They use a relatively small amount of processing and hence generate a manageable amount off heat. Datacenters generate massive amounts of heat many orders of magnitude greater than the networking equipment on a satelite generates.
            • Satelites aren't running racks of heat producing computer equipment.

              Most satellites aren't. But a satellite that is a data center certainly would be.

              Computers don't suddenly get more efficient or produce less heat just because you put them in orbit.

          • Satellites can get rid of heat with radiators placed in the shade. They do add to mass and cost though.

            That only works when the heat is at a level where it can be lost as infrared radiation.

            • And, what medium does that radiator dissipate heat into... the insulator that is space (think like the old vacuum-glass insulated Thermos bottles).
              You also have to take into account the Sun's heating capabilities...
              (bing)
              "Satellites can reach temperatures over 100C in direct sunlight and drop to -100C or lower in shaded areas.
              Temperature Variations
              In Sunlight: When exposed to direct sunlight, satellites can heat up significantly, often exceeding 100C. This is due to the intense solar radiation in space, whi

              • by drnb ( 2434720 )

                And, what medium does that radiator dissipate heat into...

                No medium, Infrared radiation, the stuff on the electromagnetic spectrum below visible light.

      • by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Saturday July 11, 2026 @06:04PM (#66233490)
        Cooling in space is actually a lot harder than on earth. despite the movies depicting you instantly freezing in space it is actually the opposite that is the problem, a vaccuum is a perfect insulator, heat dissipation is very difficult in space.
        • by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Movies are usually made for effect and not as Physics education. Hence they get several things wrong. One is that space exposure freezes you fast. Sure, it will freeze you eventually, after a long time. The other is that vacuum kills you fast. Apparently, exposure to vacuum up to 60 seconds or so does not even cause permanent damage and you remain effective for 30 second or so (hence the respective scene in 2001 was pretty realistic). Of course, after that, permanent damage sets in and after 2 minutes or so

        • Is it? I give you a counter example. The Earth is bathed in the radiation from a nuclear furnace but never gets above 300K or so

          • Courtesy of atmospheric scattering and the Ozone layer.
            I bet that the places that are sitting around 100F+ would be happy to know it never gets above 300Kelvin there :-)

        • by Loudog ( 9867 )

          I think the company that designed, deployed, and runs the worlds largest satellite constellation has some ideas about thermal management on orbit. Transmitters generate a lot of heat.

        • The movies get it right: you do freeze quickly. Not because space is cold, but because the vacuum allows rapid evaporation of all bodily fluids. That evaporation draws a lot of heat from the body, causing it to freeze.

      • Cooling in space is entirely by heat radiation. No taking advantage of those helpful convection currents Not really an advantage at all.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's because they think they can launch capacity faster than they can built it on Earth. Instead of dealing with local government, grid energy supply availability, water and so on, they can just launch it into orbit. It's all about being the first to deploy the compute capacity and cornering the market.

      Of course it also creates lots of business for SpaceX, so a lot of it could be a Hyperloop-style scam.

      Thing is they need to deal with the pollution it will create (stuff burning up on re-entry doesn't just va

      • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday July 11, 2026 @10:17PM (#66233764)

        I think it is primarily a drug-fueled hallucination of Musk and an attempt to pump the stock price. The actual experts there must know this will not work.

      • Pollution is from the launch, not reentry. Reentry just burns almost everything up (technically, some of the metals used in the thing get vaporized, but try to find the 10 grams of gold that vaporized on reentry).
        What frequency considerations? It'll use Starlink, of course!

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Stuff burning up does not disappear. It becomes part of the upper atmosphere. Before there were so few things burning up that nobody really bothered considering it, but now we are going to be having tens of thousands of satellites re-entering every year, it needs to be looked into.

          • Okay, so no burning fuels that pollute (including NatGas), no nuclear, no polluting rocket launches, no reentering satellites polluting the upper atmosphere, no mining for the materials that are used in making solar panels (hint: mining pollutes), and manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines also pollutes. Gotcha.

            So... are you just going to have a million "specially-bred to be non-polluting" hamsters running in wheels to power "Clod"?

            Face it... if you truly want to go 10,000% green, we'd be back to liv

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              I didn't say no rocket launches. We just need to evaluate the impact, and take steps to prevent damage. We need to know what is in the satellites and what the effect of them burning up is.

              • Or, maybe... just put them out beyond LEO so they're not falling out of orbit as often.

                https://www.aeanet.org/what-ar... [aeanet.org] https://www.sfa-oxford.com/kno... -- more on the minerals used

                Some are rare, a fair chunk are toxic (in certain amounts, to be sure).
                On reentry, the majority are atomized and spread over huge areas, making it not very economically viable to run around and collect 'that tenth of a gram of palladium'.

                • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  Beyond LEO requires more fuel and a bigger rocket to launch, meaning more cost. It creates greater latency due to the greater distance. Also, they want these satellites to have a 5 year lifespan because terrestrial ISPs and cellular providers and datacentre operators are continually upgrading their hardware. So they will probably want to de-orbit and replace them anyway, because moving them to a graveyard orbit will result in the graveyard getting very full very quickly.

                  It also causes issues when satellite

                  • "because terrestrial ISPs and cellular providers and datacentre operators" The data center (on the ground) has no impact at all on a satellite, and an oribital one should function until the innards melt from the non-removable heat (space vacuum = insulator); ISPs and cell providers should have to upgrade a helluva lot to need a new version of a satellite (and the only interaction between ISP and satellite is satellite uplink, same for cell providers).

                    There should be minimal malfunctions (if they build it r

    • I'm really not seeing what the advantage is of putting data centers in space that can't be accomplished less expensively down here on good old terra firma.

      For one, they're outside the juristiction of all governments. The data on that satellite in space isn't in the USA or in China. What this means in practice, I don't know. How does the FBI or the police or DHS subpoena data held in orbit? If they can't subpoena data held in the cloud in a foreign country, they also can't get it in orbit (this is "data sovereignty.") If Google holds data about Europeans on servers in orbit, does that meet GDPR requirements? (Basically not in the USA.)

    • it's more costly, more risky, and shittier performance... but what it gains: regulatory freedom

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      My thoughts exactly. The idea is really bad on the engineering side and only a drug-addled mind with no understanding of Physics could come up with it (oh, and look: one did. And one that supposedly has a Bachelor in Physics, no less ...).

      What I am wondering is whether these environmentalists do not understand that (greens can be just as clueless as everybody else) or whether they decided this was good PR for them and that it is not going to happen does not matter.

      • Protesting something that doesn't happen is better PR for you than protesting something that does...

    • by 0123456 ( 636235 )

      The cost ends up being similar assuming mass production of satellites and realistic future launch costs, and you can "just do it" rather than have to waste years fighting through bureaucracy to build them on Earth.

      Just as regulation pushed chip manufacturing out of the US, it's now pushing "AI" data centres out. I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, but it's clearly a thing.

      • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

        The cost ends up being similar assuming mass production of satellites and realistic future launch costs

        No, it doesn't. It will still be more expensive and harder to maintain. If something goes wrong, there won't be an employee that can respond. Any time an orbital is damaged or needs other maintenance, the only real solution is to launch another one. I mean, sure, they won't need to worry about power (constant access to solar) or cooling (space is cold already), but then they have completely different issues to guard against that no one needs to worry about down here.

        • See: https://science.slashdot.org/c... [slashdot.org] for the bit about cooling

          • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

            I mean, yeah, they need to account for it, but it isn't crazy difficult or as expensive to do, other than getting the thing into space, as compared to all of the other more difficult challenges they noted. Which was my point really.

            • Actually it is crazy difficult and VERY expensive to do. Temperature regulation in space is hard and expensive.
              • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

                Not when you compare it to defending components from cosmic rays and meteoroids/other space debris. If shit gets too hot, it can be shutdown until it cools. Not ideal, but that's nothing compared to becoming permanent orbital junk because something was fried by radiation or pierced by a pea-sized rock.

                • shutting down a datacentre because it got hot on a daily basis would completely defeat having the datacentre in the first place. yes defending against cosmic rays and space debris is also expensive. The whole fucking idea is insane from the start.
                  • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

                    The whole fucking idea is insane from the start.

                    Well, yeah. All the compromises needed to make it feasible means that the orbital data center will have no real processing power.

    • This is all about leverage.

      You don't wait until your one and only supplier of land decides you need to tithe 50% of your earnings for the privilege of setting up your business before you diversify.

      Look at the Strait of Hormuz. The countries with the backup plan (rail built years ago) have an option other than dealing with Iran. The ones that don't suddenly have a problem - a big one.

      Datacenters can indeed be built more cheaply on earth... for now. In the event that changes... you want to already have you

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      It's a trade off: you get abundant free energy to run the server, with extreme constraints on cooling because your server is running in the most perfect Thermos bottle ever.

      Others are taking the opposite tack: undersea data centers for abundant free cooling at the expense of having to get the power down to your servers.

      If had to bet on which one is more practial, I'd go with undersea servers. Build them off the coast of Chile, run cables out from batery-backed solar plants in the Atacama desert.

  • I mean, pie in the sky and probably dumb idea aside (with todays power generation ability and server power requirements), but how would THIS get block by the need for an environmental review but that stupid orbital sky mirror shining onto the dark side of Earth NOT need an environmental review? Seems like this is just Satellite++??

    • It's clearly OUTSIDE the environment.

      • Not sure what you mean by "it" but:

        (1) An environment is something that's around you that affects your existence, and earth-orbit space qualifies as one; and
        (2) Both projects need an environmental review, not just one.

        • by Hodr ( 219920 )

          Politician: "Well, it was towed outside the environment."
          Interviewer: "Into another environment?"
          Politician: "No, no, it's been towed beyond the environment. It's not in the environment."

      • It's clearly OUTSIDE the environment.

        It's going to be where they tow those ships that had their fronts fall off.

  • by PPH ( 736903 )

    That Furbish lousewort sure gets around.

  • Why would the earth huggers think that an American regulatory body would have jurisdiction in this case? Outer space is OUTSIDE of the United States.

  • by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Saturday July 11, 2026 @04:14PM (#66233352)

    Orbital datacenters make no sense when you consider power consumption, radiator requirements, and speed of light delay communicating with the ground. The laws of physics say an orbital datacenter cannot work as efficiently as a terrestrial one.

    My question, given that the datacenter concept is obviously a cover story, is what is it a cover story for? The most obvious is that it's to cover stock market fraud, but if satellites actually go up, then there are other, more sinister possibilities.

    • by evanh ( 627108 )

      I'm not in any way in favour, but your reasoning is incorrect. Efficiency is about doing work with an amount of energy, before it becomes heat. Not about how much heat that can be dumped.

      On the energy supply side of the equation, it's very much limited by the area of solar panels. And conveniently, the larger those collectors are the larger the area of shade is available for heat dumping as well.

      As for speed of light considerations. All of the proposals will be for LEO. Starlink being the poster child

      • LEO is already a mess of satellites with collisions massively increasing in likelihood, how well do you think Large satellites with massive arrays of solar panels will fare?
        • by evanh ( 627108 )

          Yup, expect many random panels to be punctured in data-centre lifetime. As each PV cell fails the reverse blocking diodes would allow the string to continue providing power at a reduced voltage. Each cell is about 0.5 V. but the diodes are usually across a series of 20 or so cells. So 10 Volts would be lost per puncture.

          The only reason any of this is even a discussion is because of insanity with AI bubble. Once that pops, the talk of space based solutions will vanish.

          • So... if and when the AI bubble pops, nobody is going to want AI anymore?
            I don't quite think that's how it worked when the dot-com bubble burst (seem to remember there's still this internet thing that people use).

        • Are they going in low orbit?
      • See: https://science.slashdot.org/c... [slashdot.org] for the heat part.

        The shade part doesn't matter for heat dumping. The larger the solar panel, the greater chance that it'll get smacked by some space junk or a rocket launch.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Add cosmic particles that kill small-structure electronics fast.

      I think this idea is used to push the stock-price.

    • by 0123456 ( 636235 )

      If you talk to people who know what they're talking about, it turns out the cost is very similar. As for light delay, it's a few milliseconds; if users can connect directly to the satellites it may be faster than communicating with a data centre on the other side of the US.

      • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

        If you talk to people who know what they're talking about

        Too bad you neither are one of the people who know they're talking about nor do you talk to those people.

  • Under the current interpretation of jurisdiction, this request would be out-of-scope for the FCC. Even if they wanted to grant it, they cannot.

    • Yup, that's the first mistake they made. The FCC has no such jurisdiciton, and would not under any theory that constrains authority to the agency's purpose.

      But there's an even deeper scoping issue. A truly ridiculous one that I've been waiting to hear from idiots ever since I read Fallen Angels.

      "The Environment", ends with the atmosphere. What idiot is running around trying to protect the environment of a frikkin vacuum? There is no environment to protect in space! Anything past the atmosphere is

  • by nomadic ( 141991 )

    Seems kind of premature, the knuckleheads that are trying to do orbital datacenters have about as much chance of developing a feasible, economic orbital data center as I do in being crowned Miss America.

  • These orbital datacenters need to dissipate as much heat as it receives from the Sun. Good luck with that in space.
  • Gallium arsenide is really poisonous. Millions of small orbital data centers are billions of chips. Current numbers yield about three reentries a day for renewals.
  • OK, I actually support the proposition that this warrants an environmental review. But what about Reflect Orbital's "sunlight on demand" project that actually stands to disrupt plant life, atmospheric temperatures, etc. if actually carried out, not to mention permanently deface the night sky for astronomy?
  • A Dyson sphere would have significant environmental effects too, and it's equally likely to be built.

  • by newslash.formatblows ( 2011678 ) on Saturday July 11, 2026 @08:59PM (#66233680)
    I get that the Sun doesn't shine all the time, and the wind doesn't blow all the time. What I don't get is that batteries exist. If you're planning a 100 MW data center, it's got to be cheaper, though not as eye-catching, to install 300, 400, 500 MW of solar panels and/or wind turbines and a big-ass battery here on Earth. Cooling is easier, no micrometeors to worry about, no need for radiation-hardened chips, the ability to go out and fix something that breaks, and, the largest benefit, you don't have to fling the whole friggin' thing into orbit. How is this even a serious proposal?
    • Cooling is easier, no micrometeors to worry about, no need for radiation-hardened chips, the ability to go out and fix something that breaks, and, the largest benefit, you don't have to fling the whole friggin' thing into orbit. How is this even a serious proposal?

      There is a standard called "NEBS" and entire systems are certified as NEBS compliant. For something to work in space, I imagine that a new standard (of similar nature) would be required that addresses things like heat management, radiation, and to some extent servicability. A firmware bug that kills all your SSDs in 12 servers simultaneously would but be acceptable - everything would need to be servicable/addressable provided it had power available. SSDs have a finite usable lifetime. what happens when all

    • So, a 1-acre data center that uses 100MW, probably an acre or so of a building to house the batteries and switchgear, and 10 acres of solar panels and wind turbines, and a 1-acre building of replacement parts for the batteries and solar panels and wind turbines... shouldn't take up much room, and that waste heat being dumped into water that needs to be cooled before recirculation won't heat the surrounding area more than 50F above what it would normally be and won't generate tons of fan noise.
      (ever lived ne

      • Yeah, I am in no way suggesting we need more of them down here. I (like the tech billionaires proposing these things) am completely ignoring everything except the cost to build and run them. I just don't understand how the financial part could make sense..
        • I bet their end goal is: build enough DCs that (in theory) that their AIs can be used by everyone on the planet at the same time, and bake AI into every single thing imaginable in such a way that there's no getting away from it (you _have_ to use it)... and, that's when the uncancelable lifetime subscription fees get slipped in (automatically deduct from bank or Social Security or it gets added as a nice, fat "tax" on your yearly filing).

          Don't worry... the CEOs have to get their money somehow... and making

  • Environmental groups, funded by the CCP, want America's FCC "to slam the brakes on orbital datacenters,"

  • The Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement:

    There is no environment to impact, it's f-ing SPACE!

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