Starcloud has signed a contract with SpaceX’s Starlink to integrate Starlink Mini laser terminals into its planned constellation of orbital data center satellites in low Earth orbit. The agreement covers more than 50 Starlink Mini Lasers to be mounted on over 25 Starcloud spacecraft, with two terminals per satellite. The first units are expected to reach orbit within about one year.
The Starlink Mini terminals use the same optical inter-satellite link technology deployed across the Starlink broadband constellation. Each terminal is designed to provide up to 25 Gbit/s of continuous optical connectivity at distances up to 4,000 km, with higher throughput at shorter ranges. This will enable direct laser links between Starcloud’s computing satellites and the Starlink network, creating an in-orbit backhaul layer instead of relying primarily on bandwidth-constrained ground stations.
Starcloud positions this laser-enabled architecture as a core element of its strategy to build a large-scale orbital computing platform dedicated to AI and cloud workloads. The company has filed with the FCC for authorization to deploy up to 88,000 data center satellites in low Earth orbit and has already demonstrated an NVIDIA H100-class system in space, including training a large language model and running a version of Google Gemini on orbit.