Welcome to Issue 1 — the first release of the regular weekly cadence.
Orbital compute moved from thesis to paperwork this week, with the incumbent, the newcomer, and the bus supplier all filing on the same arc.
On the Space4AI side, the orbital-data-center thesis crossed two thresholds at once: SpaceX disclosed it in an S-1, naming 2028 as the year compute satellites begin deploying. And a station-builder turned its in-house bus work into a product line aimed at exactly the kind of high-power platforms these constellations will need.
On the AI4Space side, autonomy and forecasting both took small but concrete steps. An autonomous rendezvous-and-docking demonstration retargeted in flight to a new Australian satellite, and a preprint paper proposes an operation-ready pipeline putting timeseries foundation model to work forecasting MeV electron flux in the radiation belt up to 3 days in advance.
The workloads the orbital data centers will eventually run are already meeting the satellites halfway.
Specifics below.
Space4AI
SpaceX S-1 filing discloses plan to deploy orbital AI compute satellites as early as 2028
On May 20, 2026, SpaceX filed an S-1 with the SEC that formally discloses plans to "begin deploying orbital AI compute satellites as early as 2028", positioning solar-powered LEO satellites as the next tier of the company's AI infrastructure stack.
The filing describes Starlink's existing constellation of more than 23,000 inter-satellite lasers as the data-relay backbone for the planned orbital compute layer. The opening statement "Building the Infrastructure of the Future” frames SpaceX as a vertically integrated AI infrastructure platform spanning terrestrial GPU clusters — referenced as Colossus I and II — satellite networking, and future in-orbit compute.
Vast expands into high-power satellite buses, leveraging proven in-house space station technology
A day before the SpaceX filing, on May 19, Vast announced an expansion into high-power satellite buses, leveraging technology developed in-house for its space station program and heritage from its Haven Demo satellite.
The new bus line draws directly on subsystems and engineering from Vast's crewed space station work and from the demonstrated on-orbit operation of Haven Demo. It remains interesting to see new players joining the ODC game.
AI4Space
Starfish Space retargets Otter Pup 2 to an Australian satellite for an autonomous docking demo
On May 20, 2026, Starfish Space confirmed that its Otter Pup 2 satellite is closing in on a newly designated Australian satellite as the target for its autonomous rendezvous-and-docking demonstration, 11 months after launch. The retargeting follows from the mission's original D-Orbit ION target to Gilmour Space’s ElaraSat without mentioning any reasons. Both candidate target spacecraft (ION and ElaraSat) were deployed together with Otter Pup 2 from the Transporter-14 Mission.
The demonstration is intended to validate two flight-software stacks that underpin Starfish's commercial servicing roadmap: CETACEAN, a computer-vision navigation system, and CEPHALOPOD, an autonomous guidance-and-control package. NASA, the U.S. Space Force, and Intelsat are listed as anchor customers for the full-scale Otter servicing missions that would follow a successful Pup 2 docking.
arXiv paper: ML pipeline (incl. timeseries foundation model) forecasts MeV electron flux in Earth's outer radiation belt
Last week, a preprint posted to arXiv (2605.15752) presented a machine-learning pipeline for forecasting megaelectron-volt (MeV) electron flux in Earth's outer radiation belt, combining supervised ML algorithms with a timeseries foundation model.
The authors frame the work around satellite risk mitigation: MeV electrons in the outer belt can damage spacecraft, and accurate flux forecasts are described as essential for spacecraft operations. The pipeline is positioned as a forecasting tool for that operational context rather than a purely scientific characterization of belt dynamics. With the heavy orbital (AI) infrastructure buildup, an AI-enabled forecasting against radiation damages could effectively close the loop between Space4AI & AI4Space.
Till next time,
Meta-beat Column of this week
Read also about the AI Pipeline that sits at the core, producing this Newsletter, including its ups and downs of this week: