Space industry analyst and advocate
Seattle, WA
Joined September 2009
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Cost reduction in satellite manufacturing is not getting enough attention, and it's changing the economics of space.
linkedin.com/posts/stanshull…
Stan Shull retweeted
Just in case @etnshow ever does a benchmarking of swords on @sourceryy! 💪⚔️😅
BREAKING: Inside Starcloud, the $2.3B Startup Putting Data Centers in Space
FACTORY TOUR - Redmond, WA
Primes quoted them $75M-$100M to build their first data center in space. They did it for $2.5M.
In just 21 months, Starcloud is one of the fastest companies to go from founding to orbit.
With $450M in total funding from Manhattan West, Nvidia, Cisco, Benchmark & EQT, the team walks me through their mission for AI in space.
I toured the new HQ w/ CEO @PhilipJohnston + co-founders @EzraFeilden & @AdiOltean
AI compute on Earth is limited by power & permitting. @Starcloud_ is moving it to orbit, where solar power is nearly constant. Philip says the dawn-dusk orbit alone could fit about 10 TW of compute, roughly 20x the entire US power grid. Once launch costs fall below $500/kg, he says compute in space will be cheaper than on the ground.
From Starcloud 1, Starcloud 2, to Starcloud 3, we saw:
Tracking Starcloud 1 live in orbit, circling Earth every 90 minutes at 17,000 mph with the first Nvidia H100 in space.
Co-Founder & Chief Engineer Adi Oltean walks through Starcloud 2 as the team fires the latches that deploy its 120 ft solar wingspan. It launches in January with 100x the power of Starcloud 1.
Co-Founder & CTO Ezra Feilden shows the 16-ton secondhand vibe table. The team bought it for $200K, instead of paying $1.5M & waiting 2 years for a new one, they rebuilt it over a weekend.
Engineering Manager Bailey Montaño leak checks the ion thruster after vibe. Bailey designed the radiators, which have 10x less mass & cost 500x less per watt than the ISS’s.
In the fab shop, Ezra shows the Starcloud 3 demonstrator, a 2-ton, 235 kW vehicle that fits 50 to a Starship.
Camilo Lopez cuts stainless on the laser cutter.
Engineering Operations Lead Miguel Rivera, formerly of Helion Energy, teaches me to MIG weld.
The tour ends in the new campus, about 100,000 sqft built to produce 100 satellites a week toward an 88,000-satellite constellation.
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Philip Johnston, Co-Founder & CEO of Starcloud
(00:53) Tracking Starcloud 1 live in orbit
(02:46) Fixing a 16-ton vibration machine in one weekend
(06:59) From founding to orbit in 21 months
(08:17) From SpaceX to Microsoft to Starcloud
(09:49) Inside Starcloud 2
(13:12) A $15M mission to the nearest star
(17:49) What goes on a spacecraft to Alpha Centauri
(19:10) Why SpaceX could be worth $100 trillion
(20:41) “This isn’t a hot take, this is just a fact
(24:22) How big is Starcloud 3?
(26:41) How do you book a ride to space?
(30:11) How Starcloud tests in zero gravity
(33:49) Can GPUs survive space radiation?
(35:46) The first AI model trained in space
(38:40) Will solar satellites block the sun?
(40:57) How Starcloud tests a satellite for launch
(46:45) The paperwork behind a launch
(53:07) Molly puts her welding skills to the test
(1:00:18) The engineer behind Starcloud's radiators
(1:03:07) Inside Starcloud’s new campus
(1:05:55) Why launch slots are the new scarce resource
(1:06:45) Can someone shoot down a data center in space?
Stan Shull retweeted
The International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array, or IROSA, starts to unroll during today's spacewalk by NASA's Anil Menon and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk to upgrade the orbiting outpost's power supply. Live updates: spaceflightnow.com/live/
Stan Shull retweeted
If O’Neill were alive today and was writing The High Frontier he most certainly would frame it around orbital compute stations rather than power beaming stations. He chose power beaming as it was the hot topic at the time that necessitated large amount of launch and humans in orbit.
It’s interesting that Cowboy Space had started with power beaming and then switched to orbital compute, and that they have from the beginning been framing around The High Frontier.
Stan Shull retweeted
Otter Pup 2 is now operating as close as 25 meters away from @GilmourSpace's ElaraSat, fully autonomously. This vid contains imagery captured when we were separated by just 33.6 meters.
We’ve demonstrated our ability to safely and precisely operate at very close range, executing intricate maneuvers, gathering detailed imagery, and testing the capabilities we’ll need for docking.
With this progress, Otter Pup 2 has officially completed Characterize, the penultimate phase of its mission. That leaves just one phase left: attempting docking, and a chance to make history.
Stan Shull retweeted
Two football fields. That’s roughly how close Otter Pup 2 is now regularly operating next to @GilmourSpace’s ElaraSat, fully autonomously. This puts Otter Pup 2 on a very short list of spacecraft in human history.
This video was captured from just 200 meters away as Otter Pup 2 conducted close proximity operations around ElaraSat. Otter Pup 2 is capturing images like these and using them to track and predict the position and orientation of ElaraSat on an ongoing basis.
We’ve gone from thousands of kilometers to hundreds of meters away, continuing to test, iterate and validate our technology along the way. And Otter Pup 2 is not done getting closer, as it continues its mission to make history.
Stan Shull retweeted
This morning, @USSpaceForce PAE for MWT, supported by SDA, successfully launched 21 satellites in LEO from VSFB, CA. T1’s 4th launch deployed data transport SVs built by @northropgrumman, bringing the number of on-orbit T1 SVs to 84. sda.mil/pae-for-missile-warn… 📸 credit: @SpaceX
Stan Shull retweeted
Funny how SpaceX has caught rockets the size of buildings out of mid air but old bureaucrats are like nope they won't be able to figure out this 45 year old tech.
Stan Shull retweeted
This is the last critical piece of the spectrum puzzle needed for SpaceX to provide complete phone coverage in America
Stan Shull retweeted
Margaret Hamilton has died. Absolute legend, it was my honour to meet her and have a conversation with her just a few years ago, super nice and still sharp. Ave atque vale Margaret.
We’ve lost an icon. Margaret Hamilton, a computer science pioneer best known for her work at MIT leading development of the flight software for the Apollo missions to the moon, has died at 90. Read about her legacy via MIT News: news.mit.edu/2026/margaret-h…
ALT Margaret Hamilton is reclined inside a NASA spacecraft module, surrounded by control panels and switches.
Stan Shull retweeted
I have been a posting slug!
How about that launch triple header last week: Starship, Crew 13, and Heavy!!!
Terrestrial low band spectrum acquisition and FCC approval for Starlink Mobile constellation!
And I am always relieved, grateful and proud when we complete a crew mission— welcome home to Mother Earth Crew 12!
Stan Shull retweeted
I ran the math on what happens when all the filed megaconstellations reach steady state. Add up everything on paper (SpaceX's million data center sats, Starlink, Blue Origin's Sunrise and TeraWave, Starcloud, Amazon Leo, and China's roughly 250,000 across Guowang, Qianfan, Honghu and the CTC filings) and you get about 1.4 million satellites. Using Starlink V3 at around 2 tons for the SpaceX, Blue and Starcloud birds and 1 ton for everyone else, with a 5 year life, you'd be replacing and deorbiting about 285,000 satellites a year.
That's roughly 520,000 tons a year, or 1,400 tons a day burning up in the upper atmosphere. The paper numbers won't all get built, so I also ran a more realistic case of about 210,000 satellites by the late 2030s. That still comes out to around 73,000 tons a year, or 200 tons a day.
This number is several times the natural meteor dust coming in every day, and it's mostly aluminum instead of rock. Recent work out of USC suggests each satellite leaves behind about 12% of its mass as aluminum oxide particles that hang in the stratosphere for decades and can help eat ozone. At 200 tons a day that's something like 8,800 tons of alumina a year, compared to maybe 17 tons from natural sources.
Nobody has modeled what that does long term, and I think it's the sleeper issue behind the whole debris conversation. Deorbiting solves the orbital problem by moving it into the atmosphere. Bringing hardware home intact is the only answer that solves both, and that was the core reason I started Outpost and designed our product the way that I did.
It is honestly crazy to me that the best answer our industry has come up for the debris is to burn the trash!
Space Debris: Is There a Market? spaceambition.substack.com/p…
Stan Shull retweeted
Congrats to our partners at @StarfishSpace for completing the acquisition phase… and what an amazing shot of our ElaraSat MMS-1 satellite from just ~1 km away! (Feels like we’re seeing our baby on an ultrasound.)
A big milestone, team. Adventures ahead… 🛰️🛰️
Otter Pup 2 has made it through Acquisition, one of the most challenging phases in its mission! Check out @GilmourSpace’s ElaraSat, our docking partner, from roughly 1 km away.
This is not a flyby. Otter Pup 2 is staying close, making it one of only a small number of free-flying spacecraft in history to operate under control within 1 km of another spacecraft.
With Acquisition complete, Otter Pup 2 is now fully relying on its onboard autonomous relative navigation to stay close to its docking partner. No ground-based navigation needed.
We trust the spacecraft to know where it is, where its partner is, and how to safely stay nearby. That’s the level of autonomy required for safe and scalable rendezvous and docking missions.
Stan Shull retweeted
SpaceX has launched every rocket in their lineup, 3 different vehicles, from 4 different pads, in 3 different states this week.
They also lifted basically every “category” of payload. Starlink, Crew, Commercial, and Military.
WHAT. A. WEEK.
Stan Shull retweeted
Our first view of a new Starlink V3 in orbit.
Captured on September 30 from approximately 230 km with 34 cm/px resolution, this is an early look at the next generation satellite in the Starlink constellation.
Two solar arrays are deployed, with the spacecraft in an expected orientation as it raises orbit.
The V3s will now move towards their operational altitudes, bringing them closer to HEO’s current network and enabling higher-resolution imagery as they climb.
