Starcloud Signs First Commercial Lunar Data-Center Contract With Firefly

Firefly Aerospace and orbital compute startup Starcloud signed the first commercial contract for data-center services beyond Earth orbit. The SC-1L AI payload will fly to lunar orbit aboard Firefly's Elytra Dark vehicle on Blue Ghost Mission 3 no earlier than 2028, processing Solux imagery on orbit and beaming back only the results.

• SC-1L will fly on Elytra Dark as part of Blue Ghost Mission 3 no earlier than 2028
• The payload processes Solux imagery in orbit and downlinks only the results
• One-way signal latency to the Moon is about 1.28 seconds, round trip 2.56 seconds
• Starcloud-1, carrying the first Nvidia H100 GPU in space, launched in November 2025