Startup Sophia Space gets patent for technology that will shed heat from data center satellites
Artist rendering of Sopha/Apex demo satellite.
Click for original.
One of the critical technical problems faced by the many proposed data center satellite constellations is how they will radiate the heat of their computer processes. With no atmosphere this problem is not trivial. The techniques used at ISS and with other heat-producing spacecraft are complex and heavy, including internal piping and large external radiators.
The satellite computer startup Sophia Space has now obtained a patent for technology it created in partnership with JPL that it says could solve this issue.
Sophia Space Inc., a portfolio company of Mandala Space Ventures, today announced the issuance of U.S. Patent No. 12,679,564, titled Space-Based Data Centers, which is jointly owned by Sophia Space and Caltech. The patent—filed in October 2024 and issued on July 14, 2026—covers architectures for the implementation of large-scale, modular data centers in space. The architecture uses free energy from the Sun to power onboard computers and data storage designed specifically to operate in a space environment, while passively radiating heat into deep space. The invention emerged from an internal research and development program within JPL, which is managed by Caltech, designed to support the exploration of high-risk, high-reward concepts outside of JPL’s active mission portfolio.
The patent names seven inventors, drawing on expertise from JPL, Caltech, and Sophia Space: Dr. John R. Brophy (JPL), Dr. Leon Alkalai (Sophia Space), Prof. Sergio Pellegrino (Caltech), Dr. Jonathan Sauder (JPL), Timothy P. McElrath (JPL), Dr. Douglas J. Sheldon (JPL), and Don J. Hunter. Dr. Alkalai, a longtime JPL Fellow, founded Sophia Space to commercialize the invention in June 2023 as a portfolio company of Mandala Space Ventures, a Pasadena-based venture studio focused on the emerging orbital economy.
The technology came out of an earlier research project that successfully tested engineering for beaming power down to Earth. The company hopes to fly its first demo mission in 2027. It has also said it will market this technology to others, which in the end might become its main business, rather than building its own data center constellation.
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It is a sun-synchronous orbit taking 1 MW of electrical power. So more than 1 MW coming in. They don’t say what to use for the solar cells so someone else gets the patent for that. (Perovskite?)
All those joules, waste or used, then must be radiated. The solar cells are insulated from the computer, but do permashade the computer. The computer is designed to be rectangular, wide, and flat. That waste heat then radiates off the permadark back.
In addition to the back of the computer radiating into the darkness behind, it also seems that the side of the computer that faces the sun-shielding solar array should be highly reflective in the infra-red, because the solar panels will get hot. Hmm. Maybe these IR reflectors should reflect at 45 degrees. Don’t want to send heat back to the solar array.