TL;DR
Computers in orbit have moved past the drawing board. A market survey published Nov. 4 counted 53 orbital data-center programs around the world, and 21 of them, about two in five, have already put computing or storage hardware in space. Another 10 have flown software or component tests. The ambitions on paper are far bigger: five U.S. filings ask regulators for permission to launch 1,259,600 satellites between them, more than 100 times the roughly 11,200 working Starlink satellites in the sky today (the survey's count), and none has been approved yet. The survey sees the near-term value in processing the data other satellites collect, right where it is gathered. On the ground, data centers have turned into a fight over power bills, one voters took to the ballot box this month (our story). Computers in orbit draw nothing from the grid at home, which is why this race matters on Earth. We have followed it since October: AI Data Centers Are Starting to Move Into Orbit and Satellites Try Splitting the Chores. Our odds that regulators approve at least one of those giant fleets are 55% by 2028. For the full odds on when orbital computing scales up, and the timeline of breakthroughs that gets it there, subscribe.
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