The AI Arms Race Goes To Orbit, And The Night Sky Is Collateral Damage If built as filed with the FCC (by SpaceX, Blue Origin and Cowboy Space ), the number of orbital data centers could, if left unmitigated, put roughly 100 times more visible satellites than stars in the night sky at some hours , according to a preprint by astronomers Aaron Boley, Samantha Lawler and Hanno Rein.
The paper, "Rings in the Sky," models three designs taken from company filings which suggest Blue Origin's Sunrise would be up to 51,600 satellites, Cowboy Space's Stampede 20,000, and SpaceX's constellation, which its filing describes as 1 million satellites, about 1.2 million once the orbits listed in a later update are added.
Because the filings give only narratives and a few representative orbits, the authors fill in the rest with their own assumptions. The satellites are big... and droppy.