zlacker

I think the bigger thing about a space-based data center that it's not on anyone's land, and not easy to inspect or capture.

Solar energy available around the clock allows it to be self-sufficient for a long time.

I suppose there will be some demand for high-security, high-price setups like that.

>>nine_k+(OP)
But read/write access to the datacentre is on someone's land, and spacefaring powers without access to that can still interfere with its effective operation...

>>nine_k+(OP)
Either the satellite is geostationary and doesn't have 24h / 24h sun exposure as energy source.

Or they are not geostationary but it also means the datacenter will connect to a different earth base station which means the data access route would change and latency would increase which would be unacceptable for a lot of use cases.

You would then need to replicate and synchronise customer data across the different space data centres to make it possible to access said data in constant and low-latency time.

>>notaha+R
The access is the customer's concern, much like starlink.

>>nine_k+(OP)
Once it’s easy enough to launch the hundreds of launches it would take to build one of these, it will also be trivial to launch a drone that can physically attach and attack them. This is the opposite of a secure facility.

>>nine_k+(OP)
> that it's not on anyone's land

Oh you can bet that, if we assume this happens in 10 years, various countries will absolutely do a "land grab" up high. There is no escaping it.

>>nine_k+qh
The customer is going to be extremely concerned when it turns out physically locating datacentres in space doesn't actually render the data inaccessible or uncensorable...

>>LunaSe+wc
> Either the satellite is geostationary and doesn't have 24h / 24h sun exposure as energy source.

Due to the Earth's axial tilt [1], geostationary orbits generally have 24 hour sun exposure, except for a few minutes a day around the equinoxes [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_tilt

[2] https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/our-satellites/currently-flying/...

>>skywho+fk
Makes you think. Could some rich enough rogue operator attack such data centre to for example cause stock crash and then profit more from that than the cost of mission?

>>dablue+kD
You can even see this in action via NOAA's CCOR-1: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/earth-makes-appearances-goes-...

>>philli+lo
Space is no one's land by a number of active international treaties, and also very large and empty, so enforcing boundaries is hard, except by actively killing spacecraft up high. There is no viable "space defense", comparable to the atmospheric air defense. Were it not so, spy satellites won't exist.

>>notaha+gp
To render your data inaccessible, use /dev/null. For practical purposes, some access is required.

Censoring data in a datacenter in space requires either administrative access, or physical access. The latter is complicated in space, The former depends on your trust to the operator, and your security posture.

>>nine_k+oc1
Since the admins aren't in space, actors that want to use administrative privileges to interfere with your data have no less access to it than if the datacentre was located on the ground.

The difference between the US government censoring a datacentre in orbit and one in California is a matter of cost rather than practicality, and it's actually easier for other spacefaring powers to interfere with it in a deniable manner if it's that important to them than the datacentre in California

>>notaha+2f1
This depend on you threat model. If your model is mostly legal threats form less-than-nation-state actors, being formally outside any terrestrial jurisdiction may help. If you try to protect yourself from a big threat that won't mind raiding (or bombing) your DC without a court order, quite possibly locating it in space is not the best idea.