Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? (ESPI Report 98)
A self-funded study of the European Space Policy Institute, published on 19 November 2025, with a cost model of gigawatt-scale space-based data centres developed by staff of the TUM Chair of Spacecraft Systems.
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- No authorship claim recorded yet. The source records list European Space Policy Institute (ESPI).
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- No date claim recorded yet. The source records give the publication date as 2025-11-19.
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- Data centres in space: orbital backbone of the second digital era? European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) · published 2025-11-19 · Report page, retrieved at admission on 2026-10-30. Its structured data give datePublished 2025-11-19 and a later modification on 2026-03-17. Its wording can change; earlier wording is not authenticated.
- ESPI Report 98 – Data Centres in Space: Orbital Backbone of the Second Digital Era? - Full Report European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) · published 2025-11-19 · 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”.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.
- Earliest located in Arguments about compute in orbit for O8 No practical repair of hardware in orbit →
- Earliest located in Arguments about compute in orbit for O9 Orbital compute costs more than compute on Earth →
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- Arguments about compute in orbit →2 records on this document
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- No practical repair of hardware in orbitESPI Report 98 (November 2025) states that in-orbit servicing remains so costly that deorbiting a failed satellite and launching a replacement is generally considered more cost-effective than sending crews for repairs, and that the maintenance cycle of a space-based data centre is expected to depend heavily on redundancy, which itself increases costs.2025-11-19 · publication · Stated in source · Supported Inspect claim & evidence ↗No practical repair of hardware in orbit: propositions page →
- Orbital compute costs more than compute on EarthESPI 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.2025-11-19 · publication · Stated in source · Supported Inspect claim & evidence ↗Orbital compute costs more than compute on Earth: propositions page →
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