Global private investment in space and satellite startups reached a record $20.3 billion in 2026, according to Crunchbase, excluding SpaceX’s approximately $75 billion June Nasdaq offering. SpaceX now plans to deploy its first Nvidia-equipped artificial intelligence satellite constellation in the fourth quarter of 2027 and expects the infrastructure to reach operational scale by 2028, although Evercore ISI does not forecast a substantial revenue contribution before fiscal 2029. The company’s AI1 satellites are designed to provide 150 kilowatts of peak computing power and 120 kilowatts on average from low Earth orbit using Nvidia Rubin GPUs and Vera CPUs. Nvidia owns 122.8 million SpaceX shares and is also supplying the hardware. The initiative could benefit from direct solar power and heat radiation into space, but it faces difficult thermal-management, radiation, debris and regulatory challenges. SpaceX completed its $60 billion all-equity acquisition of AI coding platform Cursor in August 2026. Meanwhile, investors backed orbital infrastructure and other space businesses, including K2 Space’s $500 million Series D at a $6.8 billion valuation. The sector’s commercial prospects remain uneven: Starlink is profitable, while orbital computing has not yet been priced, benchmarked or demonstrated at commercial scale.