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Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

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Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#121

Post by MadnessASAP »

protocolture wrote: post #80
protocolture wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Microsoft do any of that with their submersible tests? My feeling is that, a bit like starlink, you would just deprecate failed hardware, rather than bother with all the moving parts to replace faulty ram. Does mean your comms and OOB tools need to be better than the average american colo provider but I would hope that would be a given.

>The mass analysis also doesn't appear to include the massive number of heat pipes you would need to transfer the heat from the chips to the radiators. For an orbiting datacenter, that would probably be the single biggest mass allocation. And once you remove all the moving parts, you just fill the whole thing with oil rather than air and let heat transfer more smoothly to the radiators.

Oil, like air, doesn't convent well in 0G, you'll need pretty hefty pumps and well designed layouts to ensure no hot spots form. Heat pipes are at least passive and don't depend on gravity.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#122

Post by friendzis »

Robotbeat wrote: post #99
energywut wrote: post #4

Putting a datacenter in space is one of the worst ideas I've heard in a while. Reliable energy? Possible, but difficult -- need plenty of batteries Cooling? Very difficult. Where does the heat transfer to? Latency? Highly variable. Equipment upgrades and maintenance? Impossible. Radiation shielding? Not free. Decommissioning? Potentially dangerous! Orbital maintenance? Gotta install engines on your datacenter and kee…

You need less batteries in orbit than on the ground since you're only in shade for at most like 40 minutes. And it's all far more predictable. Cooling isn't actually any more difficult than on Earth. You use large radiators and radiate to deep space. The radiators are much smaller than the solar arrays. "Oh but thermos bottles--" thermos bottles use a very low emissivity coating. Space radiators use a high emissivity…

> The radiators are much smaller than the solar arrays.

Modern solar panels are way more efficient than the ancient ones in ISS, at least 10x. The cooling radiators are smaller than solar panels because they are stacked and therefore effectively 5x efficient.

Unless there are at least 2x performance improvements on the cooling system, the cooling system would have to be larger than solar panels in a modern deployment.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#123

Post by dgoldstein0 »

ddtaylor wrote: post #114
BruSwain wrote: post #92

If you are out of the magnetosphere, wouldn't your data be subject to way more cosmic ray interference, to the point that its actually a consideration?

ECC everything?

Yes. And most server hardware is already at least ECC ram. You may still want some light radiation shielding to prevent the worst, maybe some heavier shielding for solar flares. But beyond that, simple error correction can be baked into the software - ecc the bootloader and filesystem and you are mostly good to go

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#124

Post by qmr »

protocolture wrote: post #80
protocolture wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Microsoft do any of that with their submersible tests? My feeling is that, a bit like starlink, you would just deprecate failed hardware, rather than bother with all the moving parts to replace faulty ram. Does mean your comms and OOB tools need to be better than the average american colo provider but I would hope that would be a given.

>The mass analysis also doesn't appear to include the massive number of heat pipes you would need to transfer the heat from the chips to the radiators. For an orbiting datacenter, that would probably be the single biggest mass allocation. And once you remove all the moving parts, you just fill the whole thing with oil rather than air and let heat transfer more smoothly to the radiators.

Mineral oil density is around 900kg / cubic meter.

Not sure this is such a great idea.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#125

Post by junon »

protocolture wrote: post #116
sagarm wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does using oil solve the mass problem? Liquids aren't light.

I would wager that its lighter than: Repair robots Enough air between servers to allow robots to access and replace componentry. Spare componentry. An eject/return system. Heatpipes from every server to the radiators.

I would wager it isn't.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#126

Post by LambdaComplex »

philosophty wrote: post #106

"Terrestrial datacenters have parts fail and get replaced all the time." This premise is basically false. Most datacenter hardware, once it has completed testing and burn in, will last for years in constant use. There are definitely failures but they're very low unless something is wrong like bad cooling, vibration, or just a bad batch of hardware.

So, hardware lasts for years except in the cases where it doesn't?

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#127

Post by nine_k »

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #104
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #76

Space roboticist here. As with a lot of things, it isn't the initial outlay, it's the maintenance costs. Terrestrial datacenters have parts fail and get replaced all the time. The mass analysis given here -- which appears quite good, at first glance -- doesn't including any mass, energy, or thermal system numbers for the infrastructure you would need to have to replace failed components. As a first cut, this would re…

Appreciate the insights, but I think failing hardware is the least of their problems. In that underwater pod trial, MS saw lower failure rates than expected (nitrogen atmosphere could be a key factor there). > The company only lost six of the 855 submerged servers versus the eight servers that needed replacement (from the total of 135) on the parallel experiment Microsoft ran on land. It equates to a 0.7% loss in the…

Indeed, MS had it easier with a huge, readily available cooling reservoir and a layer of water that additionally protects (a little) against cosmic rays, plus the whole thing had to be heavy enough to sink. An orbital datacenter would be in a opposite situation: all cooling is radiative, many more high-energy particles, and the weight should be as light as possible.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#128

Post by pjc50 »

GolfPopper wrote: post #6
energywut wrote: post #4

Putting a datacenter in space is one of the worst ideas I've heard in a while. Reliable energy? Possible, but difficult -- need plenty of batteries Cooling? Very difficult. Where does the heat transfer to? Latency? Highly variable. Equipment upgrades and maintenance? Impossible. Radiation shielding? Not free. Decommissioning? Potentially dangerous! Orbital maintenance? Gotta install engines on your datacenter and kee…

Servers outside any legal jurisdiction. Priceless.

I know there's the fantasy of orbital CSAM storage able to beam obscenity to any point on the ground with zero accountability, but that is not going to survive real world politics.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#129

Post by rambl3r »

oceanplexian wrote: post #86
energywut wrote: post #4

Putting a datacenter in space is one of the worst ideas I've heard in a while. Reliable energy? Possible, but difficult -- need plenty of batteries Cooling? Very difficult. Where does the heat transfer to? Latency? Highly variable. Equipment upgrades and maintenance? Impossible. Radiation shielding? Not free. Decommissioning? Potentially dangerous! Orbital maintenance? Gotta install engines on your datacenter and kee…

We’re probably thinking of it the wrong way. Instead of a single datacenter it’s more likely we build constellations and then change the way we write software. There will probably be a lot more edge computing in the future. 20 years ago engineers scoffed at the idea of deploying code into a dozen regions (If you didn’t have a massive datacenter footprint) but now startups do it casually like it’s no big deal. Space i…

That sounds like the Guoxing Aerospace / ADA Space “Three-Body Computing Constellation”, currently at 12 satellites (out of a planned 2,800).

The Chinese project involves a larger number of less powerful inference-only nodes for edge computing, compared to Starcloud's training-capable hyperscale data centers.

[1] Andrew Jones. "China launches first of 2,800 satellites for AI space computing constellation". Spacenews, May 14, 2025. https://spacenews.com/china-launches-first-of-2800-satellite... [2] Ling Xin. "China launches satellites to start building the world’s first supercomputer in orbit". South China Morning Post, May 15, 2025. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3310506/chin... [3] Ben Turner. "China is building a constellation of AI supercomputers in space — and just launched the first pieces". June 2, 2025. https://www.livescience.com/technology/computing/china-is-bu...

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#130

Post by garbagewoman »

closewith wrote: post #110
monster_truck wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect they'd stop at automatic rendezvous & docking. Use some sort of cradle system that holds heat fins, power, etc that boxes of racks would slot into. Once they fail just pop em out and let em burn up. Someone else will figure out the landing bit I won't say it's a good idea, but it's a fun way to get rid of e-waste (I envision this as a sort of old persons home for parted out supercomptuers)

Spreading heavy metals in the upper atmosphere. Fun.

seems to be an industry standard
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