this post was submitted on 18 May 2025
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it seems a bit disingenuous to call these “data centers in space” or “super computers”.
30 terabytes of storage across 12 satellites? So 2.5 TB each and 744 tops (which is like, a modern mid range graphics card for a PC, the RX 9070 XT does 1557 tops for reference). Like that just sounds like they’re launching a powerful PC in to orbit. Like, that’s a lot of power for a satellite, for comparison the curiosity rover is using the same kind of CPU as a 2000 era imac G3, but it’s not a data center.
The idea of doing more processing of the data on the satellite rather than processing it on the ground is interesting and neat, but representing these as anything more than that is… weird.
12 of 2800 planned have been launched.
That’s still not very much compared to most data centers. Like, 7000 terabytes is a lot of storage for one person, but it barely even registers compared to most modern data centers.
Also, 2800 desktops networked together isn’t really a super computer or a data center.
such a network is interesting as a scientific tool for gathering and processing data, certainly, but not a data-center and not a super computer.
But being accurate with the headline makes it less click baity. 😏 Honestly, this article is scant on details.
Data centers don't usually have an "X-ray polarization detector for picking up brief cosmic phenomena." Like you said, it seems more like a scientific tool than an actual "data center."