SpaceX Founder, Elon Musk, anticipates a steady surge in space solar power, according to his recent post.
On Monday, Musk responded to a post by David Holz, founder of MidJourney, highlighting SpaceX’s escalating solar power capacity in space. Holz noted the company’s progression from 10 megawatts across 3000 gen1 Starlink satellites to 100 megawatts with 7000 gen2 satellites. He also mentioned the upcoming generation, gen3, which is expected to generate 1000 megawatts.
“SpaceX is basically 10xing space solar every few years!” Holz wrote.
Musk concurred with this observation, stating, “This trend will continue for many years.”
SpaceX Eyes Orbital AI Centers
SpaceX has been exploring the idea of placing AI data centers in space, as reported in their pre-IPO filing. The company sought authorization from the FCC in late January to launch up to one million solar-powered satellites for what it calls the “Orbital Data Center System.” This project is seen as a stepping stone towards becoming a Kardashev II-level civilization.
In a separate conversation, Musk claimed that SpaceX’s Starship rocket could deliver approximately 300 to 500 Gigawatt solar-powered AI satellites to orbit annually. Orbital data centers could benefit from near-constant solar power, higher solar panel efficiency, and no land or water use, according to Elon Musk.
However, analysts say major challenges remain, including heat dissipation in space, radiation risks that can disrupt GPUs, latency and bandwidth limitations, and the enormous launch requirements. Musk estimates the project would require 10,000 Starship launches annually, even though SpaceX completed only 165 missions in 2025 and Starship has yet to achieve a fully reusable flight.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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