Force Majeure Spooked the Market. The Satellite Record Says Jupiter Is Further Along Than the Sell-Off Implies.

Santa Teresa “Stargate” Data Center — 2100 MW — 4 units (525 MW each)

The tape treated Jupiter as a dead-or-alive bet and sold it. Our construction monitoring shows three of four units already rising — and narrows the real risk to a single, solvable variable. Here is what the satellites show, and what to watch.

The headline

Oracle has issued a force majeure notice on the Santa Teresa “Stargate” data center (Project Jupiter), according to Bloomberg. The clause reportedly takes effect if the plant is not operational by 2028. The market read it as an existential threat and marked down both Oracle and its financing partner, Blue Owl.

Bloomberg: “Oracle Cites ‘Force Majeure’ to Shield Itself on Controversial Data Center”

But a force majeure notice is a shield against a deadline — not a demolition order. The question is not whether Jupiter dies. It is how much of it comes online, and when.

What the satellites already show

Vulcan monitors Jupiter from orbit, independent of the operator’s statements and the EIA’s paper dates. The construction record is more constructive than the headline:

• Three of four units are physically progressing. Verified construction, on the ground — not a filing.
• Unit 1 is running ahead of schedule. Its earliest-online date sits before its median online date.
• Units 2–3 are pacing toward 2028 at the current weekly rate, with room to accelerate toward a 2027 finish.
• Unit 4 is the only genuine question mark — no first structure yet, which points to at most a partial force majeure on that unit alone.

A good portion of this plant is being built right now. That is not the profile of a project the market should be treating as binary.

Satellite image from September 18, 2026 with units highlighted.

Vulcan unit detail — confirmed status, construction milestones, and Weekly Progress Indicator (WPI) history.

The real variable is gas — and it is already half-solved

Construction is not the gating item; power is. Bloomberg points to natural-gas access as the central delay: the state denied the pipeline, but a federally approved route is expected online in February 2027. If the gas arrives, a substantial share of Jupiter’s 2100 MW can come online. One solvable constraint stands between “delayed” and “operational.”

The gap the market missed

The sell-off priced a dead-or-alive binary. The satellite record shows three units rising and a single, federally approved pipeline as the swing factor. That gap — between headline fear and construction ground truth — is exactly what our clients pay to see, weeks before it becomes consensus.

We publish construction intelligence, not investment advice: no price targets, no buy or sell calls. We show you what the steel and the satellites are doing; the market decision is yours.

1. WPI on the three active units — as long as it keeps printing, construction risk stays contained.
2. The federal pipeline timeline toward February 2027 — the true swing factor for online capacity.
3. Unit 4’s first structure — the milestone that confirms or retires the partial-force-majeure question.

Bottom line: The headline says force majeure. The satellites say three of four units are rising, and the whole story comes down to a pipeline that has already been approved. Don’t trade the headline — check the ground truth.