Starcloud has signed a contract with SpaceX’s Starlink to integrate its mini laser terminals. The deal covers 50+ Starlink Mini Lasers across 25+ satellites with the first hardware expected on orbit within one year.
Each of the Starcloud satellites will carry two Starlink Mini Laser terminals, the same laser crosslink technology that SpaceX developed for its Starlink constellation, providing up to 25 Gbps of continuous intersatellite connectivity at distances up to 4,000 km and are capable of higher link speeds at shorter distances. The terminals enable direct optical links between Starcloud satellites and the Starlink constellation using laser light, eliminating the need for Starcloud to send data directly through bandwidth-constrained ground stations.
For Starcloud, the optical laser mesh is the connective tissue of its orbital data center architecture. The company’s satellites are designed around four core components: solar panels for power, radiators for cooling, GPUs for compute, and laser terminals for connectivity. With compute proven on orbit via Starcloud-1’s NVIDIA H100, and 100x power generation and cooling coming on Starcloud-2 in eight months, the Starlink Space Lasers complete the hardware stack.
“This collaboration with Starlink gives Starcloud satellites continuous, high-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity. That’s what turns individual satellites into a functioning distributed data center.” commented Philip Johnston, Co-Founder and CEO of Starcloud.
The high-bandwidth intersatellite mesh supports near-term applications in real-time weather forecasting, wildfire detection, and Earth observation analytics, where data generated by sensors in orbit must be processed immediately rather than downlinked to ground stations. Starlink’s optical links enable positional satellite data and ephemerides, reducing the risk of collisions and improving space safety outcomes. Long-term, the optical backbone supports workloads uplinked from Earth, including AI inference and training. As the terrestrial AI buildout quickly runs up against constraints regarding where new energy projects can be built on Earth, deploying green energy infrastructure in space alleviates the stresses on the grid.
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