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Orbital Compute–Thermal Ecosystem

Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This technical note presents an open engineering concept for integrating orbital high-performance computing with spacecraft thermal management and fine attitude control. Space-based computing systems must ultimately reject most of their electrical power as heat through thermal radiation. Rather than treating this waste heat solely as a thermal-management burden, the proposed architecture considers it as a controllable system resource. Waste heat generated by AI/HPC computing is collected through a thermal transport system and may first be used for suitable habitat or process thermal loads. Short-duration phase-change-material (PCM) storage can provide thermal buffering. Remaining heat is dynamically distributed among multiple spatially separated radiator zones. Controlled differences in infrared radiation between radiator zones generate small photon-recoil forces and torques. These forces could potentially provide a secondary, propellant-free mechanism for fine spacecraft attitude control or momentum management while the radiators continue performing their primary heat-rejection function. The concept further proposes investigating an integrated supervisory control system in which compute workload, thermal storage, coolant routing, radiator heat rejection and spacecraft attitude requirements are optimized together. A small orbital demonstrator in the 1–10 kW class could test the relationship between commanded differential heat rejection and measured spacecraft angular response before considering larger orbital computing platforms. This document is intentionally released as an open engineering concept. Engineers, physicists, researchers and students are invited to challenge its assumptions, identify prior art, verify the calculations and develop improved architectures.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22714452
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7212250058
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