Student Research Symposium Program Portal: Submission #211

Abstract With a growing and more complex demand for technology, the physical land mass needed for data centers will inevitably exceed safe limits. That being said, moving data centers to space is a legitimate option for this expansion to compensate for the demand. Questions about this arise from the feasibility of this task, as it is complex to carry out. The way electricity will be handled, the cost of this operation, and how communication will work between the satellites and Earth are all major setbacks associated with this operation. In the past, people have launched satellites and other forms of spacecraft into orbit, all of which communicate with Earth and have their main computational tasks done on Earth. However, with the growing demand for computers, these satellites will need to have their own computer power capable of tackling the complex data that is handled in ground data centers. The goal for this research is to uncover the costs and general feasibility of this topic. The collected data will consist of reported quantitative and qualitative analyses of different companies that are doing similar things, such as Starlink. In addition, consumer reports regarding these companies will be considered. The significance of my findings is that companies will be presented with concrete evidence as to why and how space industrialization is a viable option for the expansion of their business.