Could AI Data Centers Be Moved to Outer Space? Massive data centers for generative AI are bad for the Earth. Data centers are being built at a frantic pace all over the world, driven by the AI boom. These facilities consume staggering amounts of electricity. By 2028, AI servers alone may use as much energy as 22 percent of US households.

Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026 is Feb. 25 A single collision could cause a cascading effect in orbit. Elon Musk's plan to launch millions of AI satellites could be disastrous for the planet. At the start of the month, Elon Musk announced that two of his companies -- SpaceX and xAI -- were merging, and would jointly launch a constellation of 1 million satellites to operate as orbital data centers. Musk's reputation might suggest otherwise, but according to experts, such a plan isn't a complete fantasy. However, if executed at the scale suggested, some of them believe it would have devastating effects on the environment and the sustainability of low Earth Earth orbit.

When a SpaceX rocket failure set the skies aflame over western Europe last February, no-one was sure if the debris was also polluting our atmosphere. Now scientists are directly linking the uncontrolled rocket re-entry to a plume of lithium measured less than 100km above Earth. It is the first time researchers have drawn a direct link between a known piece of space debris crashing to Earth and pollution levels. They warn that as SpaceX chief Elon Musk pledges to launch one million satellites in the coming years, this contamination could be the tip of the iceberg. The scientists were already investigating the problem of pollution from space debris when they realised a SpaceX Falcon 9 had failed in flight.

After a Falcon 9 rocket stage burned up in the atmosphere, vaporised lithium and other metals drifted over Europe. A SpaceX rocket that burned up after re-entering the atmosphere unleashed a plume of vaporised metals over Europe, a type of pollution that is expected to increase as spacecraft and satellites multiply. The upper stage of a Falcon 9, which is designed to splash down in the Pacific Ocean for possible re-use, lost control due to engine failure and fell from orbit over the north Atlantic in February 2025. We're finally solving the puzzle of how clouds will affect our climate People across Europe saw fiery debris streaking through the sky, some of which crashed behind a warehouse in Poland. Seeing the news, Robin Wing at the Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Germany and his colleagues turned on their lidar, an instrument for atmospheric sensing.

The Landsat program is the longest-running Earth observation program in history, with 50+ years of data acquisition by 8 satellites. The multispectral imagery captured by sensors onboard these satellites is critical for a wide range of scientific fields. Despite the increasing popularity of deep learning and remote sensing, the majority of researchers still use decision trees and random forests for Landsat image analysis due to the prevalence of small labeled datasets and lack of foundation models. In this paper, we introduce SSL4EO-L, the first ever dataset designed for Self-Supervised Learning for Earth O bservation for the Landsat family of satellites (including 3 sensors and 2 product levels) and the largest Landsat dataset in history (5M image patches). Additionally, we modernize and re-release the L7 Irish and L8 Biome cloud detection datasets, and introduce the first ML benchmark datasets for Landsats 4-5 TM and Landsat 7 ETM+ SR. Finally, we pre-train the first foundation models for Landsat imagery using SSL4EO-L and evaluate their performance on multiple semantic segmentation tasks.

This Startup Thinks It Can Make Rocket Fuel From Water. General Galactic, cofounded by a former SpaceX engineer, plans to test its water-based propellant this fall. If successful, it could help usher in a new era of space travel. There's been this hand-wave, this assumption, this at the core of our long-term space programs. If we can return astronauts to the moon, we'll find ice there.

A key part of the SpaceX-xAI deal's rationale is to move datacentres - the central nervous system of AI tools - into space. A key part of the SpaceX-xAI deal's rationale is to move datacentres - the central nervous system of AI tools - into space. Why has Elon Musk merged his rocket company with his AI startup? SpaceX's acquisition of xAI creates business worth $1.25tn but whether premise behind deal will work is questioned The acquisition of xAI by SpaceX is a typical Elon Musk deal: big numbers backed by big ambition. As well as extending "the light of consciousness to the stars", as Musk described it, the transaction creates a business worth $1.25tn (£920bn) by combining Musk's rocket company with his artificial intelligence startup.

Why did SpaceX just apply to launch 1 million satellites? We are only a month into 2026, yet it's already clear what one of the major space stories of the year is going to be: mega-constellations, and the ongoing attempts to launch thousands of satellites into Earth's orbit. The latest development is that SpaceX has asked the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to launch 1 million orbital data centre satellites. The previous largest filing with the FCC, also by SpaceX, was for 42,000 Starlink satellites in 2019. "This is beyond what's been proposed by any constellation," says Victoria Samson at the Secure World Foundation in the US.

Elon Musk's SpaceX is taking over his artificial intelligence (AI) start-up, as the billionaire continues to unify some of his many business interests. SpaceX confirmed the deal to acquire xAI, a smaller firm known for its Grok chatbot, posting a memo from Musk about the merger on its website. In the note, Musk said the combination would form an innovation engine putting AI, rockets, space-based internet, and media under one roof. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. However, a source familiar said it valued xAI at $125bn (£91bn) and SpaceX at $1tn, making it the most valuable private company ever.

Ukraine hails'real results' after Musk restricts Russian Starlink use Elon Musk's efforts to stop Russia from using Starlink satellites for drone attacks have delivered real results, a Ukrainian official said. Praising the SpaceX founder as a true champion of freedom and a true friend of the Ukrainian people, defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Musk had swiftly responded when he was told Russian drones with Starlink connectivity were operating in the country. The drones have been linked to a number of recent deadly attacks by Russia on Ukraine, including one on a moving passenger train which left six people dead. Looks like the steps we took to stop the unauthorised use of Starlink by Russia have worked, Musk wrote on X. Let us know if more needs to be done.