{"id":44110,"date":"2025-10-30T19:08:44","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T11:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/an-in-space-construction-firm-says-it-can-help-build-massive-data-centers-in-orbit\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T19:08:44","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T11:08:44","slug":"an-in-space-construction-firm-says-it-can-help-build-massive-data-centers-in-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/an-in-space-construction-firm-says-it-can-help-build-massive-data-centers-in-orbit\/","title":{"rendered":"An in-space construction firm says it can help build massive data centers in orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"

There has been much discussion in the space community recently about building large data centers in orbit to avoid the environmental consequences of sprawling computing facilities on Earth. These space-based data centers could take advantage of the always-on, free fusion reactor at the center of the Solar System.<\/p>\n

Proponents say this represents a natural step in the evolution of moving heavy industry off the planet\u2019s surface and a solution for the ravenous energy needs of artificial intelligence. Critics say building data centers in space is technically very challenging and cite major hurdles, such as radiating away large amounts of heat and the cost of accessing space.<\/p>\n

It is unclear who is right, but one thing is certain: Such facilities would need to be massive to support artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s\u2026 a big solar array<\/h2>\n

Nvidia recently made headlines by announcing that one of the companies it is partnering with, Starcloud, plans to build a 5-gigawatt orbital data center with \u201csuper-large solar and cooling panels approximately 4 kilometers in width and length.\u201d<\/p>\n

To put that into perspective, the eight main solar arrays on the International Space Station\u2014the largest ever assembled in space, requiring many space shuttle launches and spacewalks\u2014span about 100 meters and produce a maximum of about 240 kW. That\u2019s about 0.005 percent of the power Starcloud intends to generate.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, with a traditional approach, that\u2019s a big ask in terms of launch and assembly costs.<\/p>\n

However, it sounds a little more feasible if such an array could be assembled autonomously. And on Thursday morning, Starcloud, along with a new in-space assembly company, Rendezvous Robotics, announced an agreement to explore the use of modular, autonomous assembly to build Starcloud\u2019s data centers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur mission is to build things that are going to be useful in space,\u201d Phil Frank, chief executive of Rendezvous Robotics, told Ars. \u201cIt could be large, flat surfaces like a Solar array. Ostensibly, the size is not the limit anymore, because we can additively assemble things and then reconfigure them in orbit. And that\u2019s the core thesis of our company that led to us talking to the Starcloud team.\u201d<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

Based on tech developed at MIT<\/h2>\n

Rendezvous Robotics was founded last year by Frank, veteran space executive Joe Landon, and an inventor named Ariel Ekblaw.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s technology is based on research by Ekblaw, who founded the Space Exploration Initiative at MIT Media Lab in 2016, and led development of a self-assembling tile technology called Project TESSERAE. She has already completed a couple of tests with NASA in space, and another larger demonstration with 32 dinner plate-sized tiles is planned for next year on board the International Space Station. The new company seeks to commercialize Ekblaw\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Image of a TESSERAE experiment on the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Rendezvous Robotics<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

The tiles are fully autonomous, with their own batteries and edge processor, and use swarm robotics software and electromagnetic control to self-assemble and self-correct. The technology is intended to be scalable to very large systems.<\/p>\n

This design allows Rendezvous to stack dozens of tiles to fit inside a rocket\u2019s payload fairing, which, once in space, can be released to self-configure into a preferred configuration. There is no need to unfurl a large solar array or break a spacecraft into multiple pieces.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the state-of-the-art [assembly] today, you have to either send a person with a wrench to space to assemble, use a robotic arm and plan out each and every movement of that arm, or design a complicated origami folding mechanical system, which limits how big you can build,\u201d said Landon, a co-founder. \u201cSo those are the three techniques that we can replace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laying the groundwork<\/h2>\n

The agreement will allow Rendezvous to work with Starcloud engineers to understand their requirements, and perhaps tailor some of the currently planned tile demonstration missions to show that the solar array and radiators they need to build at scale are feasible.<\/p>\n

\u201cStarcloud\u2019s mission is to move cloud computing closer to where data is generated,\u201d Starcloud CEO Philip Johnston said in a statement. \u201cPartnering with Rendezvous gives us the ability to scale our orbital power and cooling systems to meet the growing demand for space-based datacenters and AI workloads. Together, we\u2019re laying the groundwork for a new class of orbital infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a very long way for all of this to go, of course. However, there is ample funding available for companies that can meet the infrastructure demands of AI data centers in the near future. Perhaps space is the place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There has been much discussion in the space community recently about building large data centers in orbit to avoid the environmental consequences of sprawling computing facilities on Earth. These space-based data centers could take advantage of the always-on, free fusion reactor at the center of the Solar System. Proponents say this represents a natural step […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9524,9525,21,496],"class_list":["post-44110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-datacenters","tag-rendezvous-robotics","tag-space","tag-starcloud"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}