In the lead up to the SpaceX initial public offering (IPO) expected this Friday, the company has been releasing more information on what it plans to do to support its high valuation. This includes a new approach to manufacturing for its planned orbital data centre.
To support and meet the challenge of building its planned massive orbital data centre, the company is preparing a long-term infrastructure shift that moves from launching payloads using terrestrial rockets to the manufacturing of satellite components directly on the Moon. While SpaceX intends to deploy initial artificial intelligence data centres in low-Earth orbit using its Starship launch vehicle, it plans to transition the bulk structural fabrication to the lunar surface to scale its orbital data centre.
The baseline phase of the technology program relies on the newly designed AI1 computing satellite. Operating at an orbit between 600 and 800 kilometres, each satellite is engineered to deliver 120 kilowatts of sustained compute power and one terabit of laser-link connectivity, maintaining a low network latency of approximately three milliseconds. These orbital platforms are meant to be structurally simpler than traditional communications satellites, trading complex phased-array antennas for a 70-metre wingspan consisting entirely of solar panels and double-sided radiators.
SpaceX lunar mass driver illustration
To scale this hardware past a terawatt of capacity, the company plans to establish manufacturing facilities on the Moon to build the heavy components using local lunar materials. Because Earth features a deep gravity well and a thick atmosphere, lifting millions of tonnes of structural mass into space is economically restrictive. By manufacturing the high-mass solar arrays and radiators on the lunar surface, SpaceX can bypass Earth-to-orbit constraints, though the highly sensitive semiconductor chips will still initially be imported from Earth.
Once assembled, these deep-space computing nodes will be deployed using a lunar mass driver. This infrastructure operates as an electromagnetic linear electric motor, functioning similarly to a railgun. It leverages the lack of a lunar atmosphere and the Moon’s low gravity to accelerate satellites directly into space without relying on chemical rocket propellants.
Once assembled, these deep-space computing nodes will be deployed using a lunar mass driver. This infrastructure operates as an electromagnetic linear electric motor, functioning similarly to a railgun. It leverages the lack of a lunar atmosphere and the Moon’s low gravity to accelerate satellites directly into deep space without relying on chemical rocket propellants.
Elon Musk explained that this off-world manufacturing framework represents the only mathematically viable path to scale space-based computing by another thousandfold.
“Because the Moon has no atmosphere and only one sixth of Earth’s gravity, you can accelerate the AI satellites into deep space without a rocket,” Musk said.
The groundwork for this system is underway in Bastrop, Texas, where a solar manufacturing plant is under construction. The company says it expects to achieve an annualized orbital compute capacity of one gigawatt by late next year, before attempting to scale production tenfold annually over the next decade.