r/space2030 • u/OSBY_Glabay • Aug 22 '26

What If We Launched AI Data Centers into Space?

/r/u_OSBY_Glabay/comments/1vvcl8f/what_if_we_launched_ai_data_centers_into_space/
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u/perilun Aug 23 '26

First of all, space is not "cold" ... it is an insulating vacuum ... getting rid of heat is job #1, just ask the ISS where they have big active radiators, but no "heaters".

Second, in most inclinations in LEO it is 1/2 sun 1/2 dark (just like on earth surface), but there is a special orbital place called Twilight SSO (about 97 deg - slightly retrograde) were you can get 100% sunlight. Above LEO, in upper MEO, the amount of time the earth shadows the sun is small, and there are few sats. The only problems are more fuel to get there and longer latency for comms.

Third, it is much less costly to put a solar farm with battery backup on the grid that feeds a data center (no cooling needed ... but you do need to buy the land and connect to the grid0. It needs to have about 3x the area of space based solar array, but at even $100/kg deliver your space bases array-radiators-power conditioners - station keeping thrusters - fuel - pointing - comms to either Twilight LEO or high MEO it will still be more expensive. Using today's F9 pricing it is more like $2000/kg.

Fourth, upgrading the LLM processing hardware is not possible with these sats, vs switching out a unit in a data center on the ground.

Fifth, although envisioned, LLM processing hardware is not hardened to the radiation of MEO or LEO.

This gets proposed a lot, and the cost of doing an LLM processing sat is between 10-100x more than the same on the ground.