SpaceX suddenly makes a major announcement! Applying to deploy 1 million satellites

Good news comes from the commercial space sector.

According to the latest disclosed documents, Elon Musk’s commercial space company SpaceX recently submitted an application to U.S. regulators, planning to launch up to 1 million satellites to build an “Orbital Data Center.”

Additionally, NASA announced on January 30th that the Perseverance rover on Mars has completed its first AI-planned route traversal on the Martian surface. Notably, in this mission, AI took on the task of analyzing images and terrain data captured by the orbiters for the first time, generating driving instructions based on that analysis.

SpaceX Applies to Deploy 1 Million Satellites

According to a report on the US “PC Magazine” website on January 31st, SpaceX submitted relevant application documents to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Friday (January 30th), planning to launch up to 1 million satellites to build an “Orbital Data Center.”

The documents reveal that SpaceX is planning a satellite network called the “Orbital Data Center System,” applying to launch and operate a constellation of up to 1 million satellites. These satellites will operate in different orbital shells ranging from 500 km to 2000 km.

This figure significantly amplifies market attention on SpaceX’s future capital expenditure, execution capabilities, and regulatory negotiations.

In the 8-page document, SpaceX defines the system as: “An unprecedented satellite constellation (Orbital Data Center) with immense computing power, used to drive advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models and their dependent applications.”

SpaceX states that to meet the large-scale AI inference and data center applications serving billions of users worldwide, it plans to deploy a system consisting of up to 1 million satellites.

SpaceX also notes that these satellites will operate within narrow orbital shells no wider than 50 kilometers (leaving enough space to avoid conflicts with other systems with similar goals).

The document emphasizes that the Orbital Data Center is the most effective way to meet the growing demand for AI computing.

Compared to traditional data centers on Earth, which face energy shortages, heat dissipation issues, and land limitations, SpaceX plans to utilize endless solar energy in space and route computing traffic in real-time via laser links (Optical links) to existing Starlink systems.

Elon Musk reposted a report on SpaceX’s application to launch up to 1 million satellites on social platform X.

However, analysts point out that, at present, the scale of the application for up to 1 million satellites seems unprecedented and is likely to undergo strict review by the FCC.

Earlier this month, the FCC approved SpaceX’s application to operate an additional 7,500 satellites to build the second-generation Starlink satellite network, including satellites in lower orbits. But at that time, the regulator did not approve the full application for 22,488 satellites.

The FCC had previously explicitly required SpaceX to complete 50% of the second-generation satellite deployment by 2028 and expressed high concern over orbital debris and space safety. Industry analysts believe that the risks of orbital congestion and environmental impact from a million satellites will face extremely rigorous scrutiny and may even provoke strong protests from other spacefaring nations.

Although details remain somewhat vague, SpaceX openly stated in the document: “The company plans to design different versions of satellite hardware to optimize operations across various orbital shells.”

NASA Announces

According to Xinhua News Agency, on January 30th local time, NASA announced that the Perseverance rover on Mars has completed its first AI-planned route traversal on the Martian surface.

Based on information released on NASA’s official website, this demonstration mission was conducted on December 8th and 10th, 2025, led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The mission team used generative AI with visual understanding capabilities to analyze high-resolution images captured by the Mars reconnaissance orbiter, along with terrain and slope data, to identify key terrain features such as rocks, sand ripples, and boulder accumulations, generating a continuous route with multiple waypoints to help Perseverance safely traverse complex terrain. Previously, this work was mainly performed by ground engineers.

Perseverance stored AI-generated route nodes in memory, traveled about 210 meters on December 8th, and another approximately 246 meters two days later.

NASA states that due to the average distance of about 225 million kilometers between Mars and Earth, there is significant communication delay, making real-time remote control of the rover impossible. Over the past 28 years, the rover’s routes have been mainly manually planned by ground engineers based on terrain and operational data. In this mission, AI took on the task of analyzing images and terrain data captured by the orbiter and generating driving instructions accordingly.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that similar autonomous technologies will help improve the operational efficiency of future deep-space exploration missions under communication delays and better cope with complex environments to achieve more scientific results.

On January 25th, Perseverance’s driving distance on Mars officially surpassed 42.2 kilometers, equivalent to completing a marathon.

Hiroshi Ono, a researcher in autonomous systems at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the first author of related papers, said: “‘Perseverance’ relies on autonomous driving for over 90% of its mileage, enabling efficient collection of diverse Martian samples. In the future, remote autonomous driving technology will be a key support for human landings on the Moon and Mars.”