Tether-Based Architecture for Solar-Powered Orbital AI Data Centers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel tether-based orbital data center architecture powered by solar energy, enabling continuous, high-power AI inference with minimal latency and effective thermal and radiation management.

Contribution

It presents a new structural design for orbital AI data centers utilizing tethers, photovoltaic power, and passive control to achieve continuous high-power operation in specific orbits.

Findings

Achieves 2-20 MW computing power with tethered nodes.

Provides continuous operation in Dawn-Dusk Sun-Synchronous orbit.

Details heat management and collision dynamics for orbital stability.

Abstract

We propose a tether-based structural architecture for orbital data centers operating in Dawn-Dusk Sun-Synchronous (DDSS) orbits under continuous sunlight. These space-based data centers, powered solely by solar energy, could provide multi-megawatt computing for artificial intelligence (AI) inference with minimal latency to Earth. The proposed design uses a tethered chain of computing nodes with photovoltaic panels to achieve uninterrupted 2-20 MW of computing power, and employs radiative cooling and integrated shielding to manage heat and radiation. We detail the system architecture, including mass budgets, passive attitude control, and the dynamics induced by micrometeoroid collisions.