In a surprising move, Amazon has thrown itself into the fight over SpaceX's controversial plan to launch a million data centers into Earth's orbit.
In early March 2025, Amazon lodged a complaint against the plan, urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny SpaceX's application because SpaceX had not presented any solid details about how it would achieve its plan. Amazon argues that SpaceX's plan would take centuries and force every agency that uses low Earth orbit to schedule around a plan that may never even come to fruition.
Moreover, Amazon cites the FCC's own rules (Section 25.112) that make it clear (via Scribd) the Commission must dismiss all "applicants that, among other things, fail to provide complete information or full answers to the questions asked by the Commission's Part 25 licensing rules." That was met harshly by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, an ally of SpaceX owner Elon Musk, as he publicly scolded Jeff Bezos' conglomerate in an X post.
Amazon Leo's complaint goes on to point out that others are opposed to the development, noting that the pollution of such systems could nullify the environmental gains won by shifting data center infrastructure northward.
Furthermore, some worry that such constellations could potentially destroy the field of astronomy. Whether SpaceX gets its orbital data center business off the ground may have a major impact on its status as the most valuable company in the world.
SpaceX's data center plan is "the first step towards becoming a Kardeshev II-level civilization," fully harnessing the Sun to propel "humanity's multi-planetary future."
According to the company's FCC proposal (via Scribd), the system's one million satellites will operate in "narrow orbital shells" spanning up to 50 kilometers wide. To fully harness the Sun's rays, the satellites must operate outside the Earth's shadow, necessitating a much higher altitude than current LEO constellations, estimated to be between 500 and 2,000 km. Data transfers will rely "nearly exclusively on high-bandwidth optical links," to transfer data to both Starlink satellites and earthbound customers.
Amazon's criticism isn't without merit. SpaceX's ambitions would require it to launch roughly 63 times more satellites than are currently in low Earth orbit. Google's executive Travis Beals of Google confirmed it will take roughly 10,000 satellites to match the capacity of one gigawatt data campus (via WSJ).
Many were already skeptical of Starlink's 40,000 satellite initiative. SpaceX's FCC proposal does little to explain how it will meet this currently unattainable launch capacity, requiring the company to dramatically escalate its launch rates from once every few days to every few hours.
Further complicating the issue is the likely size of SpaceX's LEO data centers. Experts believe that low-Earth orbit data centers' added hardware will make them much larger than any previous SpaceX satellite (via Sky & Telescope). This will require SpaceX to rely on its troubled Starship rocket, whose viral explosions have delayed NASA's Artemis lunar mission by two years and counting.
To date, the partnership is aiming for a 2028 launch date that many experts are treating with heavy skepticism.
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