Lumen Orbit wants to put data centers into space

It’s brand new, but it’s already a big name in technology: earlier this year, Lumen Orbit, a trio of engineered satellites, set out to improve the Space Internet with optimized satellite design.

Now VCs are flocking to the Redmond, WA-based company, with a successful $11 million round providing a $40 million valuation for the company, according to Techcrunch this week.

People called it a moonshot, but coming out of Y Combinator’s demo day, Lumen Orbit was already turning heads.

So some big names are already on board, with more to come.

Some of these investors include NFX and Soma Capital, as well as Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia as other players. According to reports, there are already plans for a new round of funding.

Sending our Data Centers into Space

So what makes the Lumen Orbit so attractive?

Essentially, the company wants to put data centers into orbit in space.

Backers are touting Lumen Orbit as part of the “new space” economy, where companies and nations are experimenting with the idea of ​​locating data centers beyond Earth’s atmosphere. For example, a Eurozone project called ASCEND (Advanced Space Cloud for European Net Zero Emission and Data Sovereignty) described this way by internal resources:

“ASCEND is a feasibility study led by Thales Alenia Space, for the European Commission as part of the Horizon Europe programmes. The goals of the study are to demonstrate the technical feasibility and environmental benefits of deploying large capacity data centers in space. “

The Case for Spatial Processing

One reason innovators want to build data centers in deep space is to eliminate concerns about the amount of land and cooling resources required for these massive systems.

Since space is infinite, manufacturers don’t have to worry about real estate – because of the cold temperatures in deep space, they don’t have to worry about using millions of gallons of water to cool the hardware as it runs.

Essentially, the satellite centers would use solar energy to operate, and excess energy could be stored in batteries for periods when access to the sun is compromised.

It looks like the scientists have done the numbers and some of these plans will allow for the power needed to send the satellite data back to earth, as well as everything needed for computing operations.

What is already up there?

Do we already have data centers in space or is this a radical departure?

There are some flagship projects that show what is possible: for example, the Stacked Miniaturized and Radiation Tolerant Intelligent Electronics (SMARTIE) facility provides high performance through the use of computer ’tiles’, each offering over 300 Gflops of computing power.

These satellites also handle tasks related to artificial intelligence. They process a lot of sensor and instrument data, as explained by Wikipedia. What’s inside is a RAD750 radiation hardened single board computer developed by BAE Systems.

These and other drawings show the first early steps in this type of construction.

Space Data Centers: The Price Tag

Essentially, the reduced need for resources in the space satellite business will translate into lower costs, according to some of the people on the inside.

“Instead of paying $140 million for electricity, you can pay $10 million for launch and solar,” said Lumen Orbit co-founder Philipp Johnston, a Harvard and Columbia graduate. All three founders have impressive corporate and academic experience: Chief Technology Officer Ezra Fielden worked at Airbus and contributed to NASA research. Adi Oltean was the principal software engineer at SpaceX, working on Starlink. In interviews, Johnson and Fielden have talked about how their work led to the idea of ​​using space in this way to bring some of our major computing operations closer to the sun.

It may sound like a science fiction idea, but data centers in space make a lot of sense for some compelling reasons. As we move through these dynamic times, we’re trying to figure out what’s best for hardware design. If we can improve certain hardware functions, we’re likely to, even if it means sending our high-powered AI hardware into space. So look for something like this to keep generating interest and dollars.