A structured breakdown of the orbital compute market, mapping who is active today, how the ecosystem is splitting across business models, and where operational maturity actually exists.

Radiative cooling is often cited as a fundamental barrier to space data centers. Using first-principles scaling and Starlink-class hardware, we show that cooling is a manageable engineering trade-off rather than a hard physics constraint.

A deep-dive into which orbits offer the best solar yield, lowest radiation burden, and greatest long-term capacity for orbital compute. We compare LEO, SSO, dawn–dusk SSO, MEO, HEO, and L1 to uncover where the first space data centers will launch, and where terawatt-scale systems must eventually go.

Space-based power for AI compute is closer to economic parity than many think. In this week’s analysis, we break down the true $/W of orbital power systems, compare them directly to terrestrial datacenters, and show why mass-optimized HEO architectures could already compete on cost at Starship-era launch prices.

A breakdown of SpaceX’s 100-gigawatt per year orbital compute goal in ~5 years: the power, thermal, and hardware breakthroughs needed to make it real.