there is high military value in space based compute.
Centralized datacenters on earth are “easy targets”.
It a lot harder of low end opponents to strike a satelite, even more so if its many.
Also it makes the latency shorter to the drones on the front lines.
Imagen FPV drones, but they transmit picture strait to low earth orbit datacenter where compute happens.
This keeps the ping low and the compute hardware on the drone itself cheap.
It a lot harder of low end opponents to strike a satelite, even more so if its many.
Space datacentres are a boondoggle.
Heard of Kessler syndrome? You’ll only need to blow up one or two (or just put up a shrapnel bomb nearby) to deny LEO to everyone and take out all the current satellites. Shit, it’s already close to that point with the current satellite population (looking at you starlink). Dealing with the result will be a long and painful process with which we have little know-how and less experience.
Lasers are still light. Light travels at similar speeds through fiber as it does in a vacuum.
Except you have the added 340 miles of distance to get to their orbital height, and then the same back down. So that’s a 680 mile minimum distance for every packet, not including any transmission across the constellation which would be a greater distance since the circumference of their orbit is obviously larger than the Earth and thus landline fiber. Not to mention that every connection adds latency as well.
Is that total combination faster than a fiber landline across a Tier 1 backbone and subsequent connections to the end points? Depends a lot on the latency added by those connections and what the ground stations on either end do converting it back. It could be faster, but that’s not a definite thing.
And all of this ignores the fact that datacenters expend a shit ton of heat, which is not easy to do in the vacuum of space. The ISS which is also in LEO, ranges in temperature between -157C to +121C. So you have to take that into account when trying to dissipate heat. And the radiators on the ISS are capable of 3m²/kW. Given the power usage and heat produced by a data center… Dissipating that heat into orbit would require a ridiculously large system. Much larger than the data center itself.
It’s a ridiculous idea from every perspective due to basic physics.
If youre going around the world, you’re going through multiple connection points which will absolutely add up. Going from LA to NYC, it probably wouldn’t be.
And these data centers satellites are small. Stop thinking massive things, they’re going to be like the v3 starlink dishes but a little bigger. They’re going to launch multiple data center dishes per launch like how starlink v3 will be 60, not 1 or 2. SpaceX already knows how to radiate heat away on the satellites they launch, this isnt going to be an issue for them, they already do it today.
Edit: like size wise you need to be thinking like a server rack, plus the huge folding solar array/radiator for it. They already know how to make the folding solar panels as well. And the rack will probably be long and narrow so they can angle it best against the sun so it gets as least heat as possible from it, not a chubby thing with a lot of surface on all sides.
Edit: also land based routing isn’t direct increasing the distance likely substantially, potentially more than the up and down, the massive starlink constellation it will be more direct.
there is high military value in space based compute. Centralized datacenters on earth are “easy targets”. It a lot harder of low end opponents to strike a satelite, even more so if its many.
Also it makes the latency shorter to the drones on the front lines.
Imagen FPV drones, but they transmit picture strait to low earth orbit datacenter where compute happens. This keeps the ping low and the compute hardware on the drone itself cheap.
Space datacentres are a boondoggle.
Heard of Kessler syndrome? You’ll only need to blow up one or two (or just put up a shrapnel bomb nearby) to deny LEO to everyone and take out all the current satellites. Shit, it’s already close to that point with the current satellite population (looking at you starlink). Dealing with the result will be a long and painful process with which we have little know-how and less experience.
Latency around the world is faster in space too.
If the US military is doing something across the globe, satellite laser links will be faster than any ground based system.
Lasers are still light. Light travels at similar speeds through fiber as it does in a vacuum.
Except you have the added 340 miles of distance to get to their orbital height, and then the same back down. So that’s a 680 mile minimum distance for every packet, not including any transmission across the constellation which would be a greater distance since the circumference of their orbit is obviously larger than the Earth and thus landline fiber. Not to mention that every connection adds latency as well.
Is that total combination faster than a fiber landline across a Tier 1 backbone and subsequent connections to the end points? Depends a lot on the latency added by those connections and what the ground stations on either end do converting it back. It could be faster, but that’s not a definite thing.
And all of this ignores the fact that datacenters expend a shit ton of heat, which is not easy to do in the vacuum of space. The ISS which is also in LEO, ranges in temperature between -157C to +121C. So you have to take that into account when trying to dissipate heat. And the radiators on the ISS are capable of 3m²/kW. Given the power usage and heat produced by a data center… Dissipating that heat into orbit would require a ridiculously large system. Much larger than the data center itself.
It’s a ridiculous idea from every perspective due to basic physics.
If youre going around the world, you’re going through multiple connection points which will absolutely add up. Going from LA to NYC, it probably wouldn’t be.
And these data centers satellites are small. Stop thinking massive things, they’re going to be like the v3 starlink dishes but a little bigger. They’re going to launch multiple data center dishes per launch like how starlink v3 will be 60, not 1 or 2. SpaceX already knows how to radiate heat away on the satellites they launch, this isnt going to be an issue for them, they already do it today.
Edit: like size wise you need to be thinking like a server rack, plus the huge folding solar array/radiator for it. They already know how to make the folding solar panels as well. And the rack will probably be long and narrow so they can angle it best against the sun so it gets as least heat as possible from it, not a chubby thing with a lot of surface on all sides.
Edit: also land based routing isn’t direct increasing the distance likely substantially, potentially more than the up and down, the massive starlink constellation it will be more direct.