Orbital Datacenter Plans Need an Environmental Review, FCC Told
5 119Environmental 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.
5 comments
Solar fricken roadways all over again (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Saturday July 11, 2026 @03:46PM (#66233308)
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.
Re: Solar fricken roadways all over again (Score: 5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Solar fricken roadways all over again (Score: 5, Interesting)
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.
Re:No jurisdiction (Score: 5, Informative)
by Local ID10T ( 790134 ) on <ID10T.L.USER@gmail.com> on Saturday July 11, 2026 @04:38PM (#66233392)
Per the United Nations Outer Space Treaty, anything launched from a nation, or by a party under its authority, is the property and responsibility of that nation. If the companies launching or operating the satellites are American, then the USA is supposed to regulate them.
There's a bigger issue (Score: 5, Insightful)
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.