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The business case for satcom, EO, PNT, and defense satellites is clear. But the case for in-space servicing satellites—which fly around to extend life, refuel, inspect, service, and deorbit—is far less obvious
Three weeks ago, NVIDIA sparked controversy by posting a graphic of Starcloud’s massive space-based data centers, with their absurd-looking 4km solar arrays. A week later, Elon Musk announced that Starlink would also be entering the space data center race.
Satellite bus manufacturing used to be the domain of a handful of national aerospace primes. Over the past 20 years, however, two major startup waves have disrupted this status quo.
But there are enormous technical hurdles that need to be overcome. So, we spoke to Starcloud and Sophia Space, two startups building data centers in space, to understand the opportunity and separate the fact vs. fiction.
