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ESPI Report 98 (November 2025) models gigawatt-scale space-based data centres against a terrestrial benchmark and finds that, under its modelling assumptions, a constellation architecture has double the benchmark’s capital cost and more than triple its operating cost, and a monolithic architecture an operating cost 38% higher. Copy claim link
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Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source; Context: primary · 1 source
Date 2025-11-19 · publication Role Earliest located Register (kind of text) Nonfiction Conditions The report’s cost model of gigawatt-scale architectures, with a two-year IT-hardware lifetime; its cost equations give expected values without a measure of uncertainty. Scope and limits Earliest located among the texts found by the pack’s searches of 2026-10-28 and the cross-family check’s bounded search of 2026-10-29/30; not a claim that no earlier text exists. Architecture-specific and conditional: the report finds the monolithic architecture’s capital cost comparable to the benchmark’s and, with IT hardware lasting over three years, cheaper over its lifetime, and it concludes that the potential for economic feasibility is high if component lifespan and cost, robotic maintenance and launch prices improve. Not a finding for all orbital compute. It replaces Turyshev’s preprint (April 2026) as earliest located, a correction recorded on the collection page.
The evidence 04 primary source Supports the claim
ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report ↗ European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) · 2025-11-19
Archived copy, captured 2025-11-19: ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report ↗
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Source excerpt “the constellation architecture is not nearly as competitive as the monolithic architecture in the GW-scale. Its CapEx is double the TBDCs and its OpEx more than triple.” Location in source PDF p. 46 (printed p. 42), Annex A, “Results and Discussion”
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-10-30
Source details and check notes Authors European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) Version Full report PDF, retrieved at admission on 2026-10-30 (SHA-256 ebd2a9682e89ee65d8fdae7d4492f5b80df55a7804611c03594c8551fd47217c). The cross-family check (2026-10-30) opened the Internet Archive capture of 19 November 2025 linked here and found it byte-identical. The PDF prints “Published: November 2025”; the day is the report page’s. The report reserves its rights and asks that extracts cite it as “ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report, November 2025”. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-30 Language English (en) Archive copy Open archived copy, captured 2025-11-19: ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report ↗ . Captured on the recorded publication date. An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 2025-11-19. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-10-30.Attribution European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), “ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report”, 2025-11-19. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Added at the admission of the compute, power and orbit pack (research/compute-power-orbit). Located by the cross-family check (earlier-text search, OC9) and read at admission. The quotation (27 words) matched a direct retrieval of 2026-10-30 (SHA-256 ebd2a9682e89ee65d8fdae7d4492f5b80df55a7804611c03594c8551fd47217c). Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms. No human editorial review. primary source Supports the claim
ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report ↗ European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) · 2025-11-19
Archived copy, captured 2025-11-19: ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report ↗
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Source excerpt “With respect to OpEx it’s still 38% more expensive than the TBDC given the modelling assumptions.” Location in source PDF p. 46 (printed p. 42), Annex A, “Results and Discussion”
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-10-30
Source details and check notes Authors European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) Version Full report PDF, retrieved at admission on 2026-10-30 (SHA-256 ebd2a9682e89ee65d8fdae7d4492f5b80df55a7804611c03594c8551fd47217c). The cross-family check (2026-10-30) opened the Internet Archive capture of 19 November 2025 linked here and found it byte-identical. The PDF prints “Published: November 2025”; the day is the report page’s. The report reserves its rights and asks that extracts cite it as “ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report, November 2025”. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-30 Language English (en) Archive copy Open archived copy, captured 2025-11-19: ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report ↗ . Captured on the recorded publication date. An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 2025-11-19. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-10-30.Attribution European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), “ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report”, 2025-11-19. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Added at the admission of the compute, power and orbit pack (research/compute-power-orbit). The monolithic architecture’s operating cost, as the report states it. The quotation (16 words) matched a direct retrieval of 2026-10-30 (SHA-256 ebd2a9682e89ee65d8fdae7d4492f5b80df55a7804611c03594c8551fd47217c). Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms. No human editorial review. primary source Context only
ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report ↗ European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) · 2025-11-19
Archived copy, captured 2025-11-19: ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report ↗
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Source excerpt “In conclusion, the potential for SBDCs being economically feasible is high.” Location in source PDF p. 46 (printed p. 42), Annex A
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-10-30
Source details and check notes Authors European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) Version Full report PDF, retrieved at admission on 2026-10-30 (SHA-256 ebd2a9682e89ee65d8fdae7d4492f5b80df55a7804611c03594c8551fd47217c). The cross-family check (2026-10-30) opened the Internet Archive capture of 19 November 2025 linked here and found it byte-identical. The PDF prints “Published: November 2025”; the day is the report page’s. The report reserves its rights and asks that extracts cite it as “ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report, November 2025”. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-30 Language English (en) Archive copy Open archived copy, captured 2025-11-19: ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report ↗ . Captured on the recorded publication date. An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 2025-11-19. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-10-30.Attribution European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), “ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report”, 2025-11-19. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Added at the admission of the compute, power and orbit pack (research/compute-power-orbit). The report’s own conclusion, which must be read with the cost findings. The quotation (11 words) matched a direct retrieval of 2026-10-30 (SHA-256 ebd2a9682e89ee65d8fdae7d4492f5b80df55a7804611c03594c8551fd47217c). Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms. No human editorial review. primary source Context only
ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report ↗ European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) · 2025-11-19
Archived copy, captured 2025-11-19: ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report ↗
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Paraphrase The report says the monolithic architecture becomes cheaper than the benchmark over its lifetime if IT hardware lasts over three years, uses a two-year lifetime in its model, names a launch cost under $150/kg among its conditions for viability, and gives expected costs without a measure of uncertainty.
Location in source PDF pp. 46–47 (printed pp. 42–43), Annex A
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-10-30
Source details and check notes Authors European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) Version Full report PDF, retrieved at admission on 2026-10-30 (SHA-256 ebd2a9682e89ee65d8fdae7d4492f5b80df55a7804611c03594c8551fd47217c). The cross-family check (2026-10-30) opened the Internet Archive capture of 19 November 2025 linked here and found it byte-identical. The PDF prints “Published: November 2025”; the day is the report page’s. The report reserves its rights and asks that extracts cite it as “ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report, November 2025”. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-30 Language English (en) Archive copy Open archived copy, captured 2025-11-19: ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report ↗ . Captured on the recorded publication date. An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 2025-11-19. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-10-30.Attribution European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), “ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report”, 2025-11-19. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Added at the admission of the compute, power and orbit pack (research/compute-power-orbit). The model’s conditions and limits. The paraphrase is Selekoa’s; it is not a quotation and was not machine-matched. No human editorial review. Status and meaning Editorial status. Not reviewed by an editor . An exploratory record that no editor has accepted. This status does not say whether a person has read any linked passage. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.
Relation. A passage of the document meets the proposition’s criterion. The record documents what the text states, in its register (fiction and satire are labelled); it is not evidence that the proposition is true and implies no influence on or from another text.
Date. Date of publication on the European Space Policy Institute’s report page; the PDF prints “Published: November 2025”.
Record ID cpo-orb-oc9-espi-2025