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Google's first Suncatcher orbital data center test launches October 1

52 points · 96 comments · sbulaev

  1. spandrew · · focus · HN ↗
    There were a lot of YouTube science-fluencers talking about how dumb this idea was. Google themselves called it a Moonshot (har har).

    Curious to see if the experiment changes our understanding of space radiators at a certain scale for non-space exploration purposes.

    1. trhway · · focus · HN ↗
      It is 700w of heat radiating by 1m2 at 70C ( ie one GPU can sit on such a radiator) What is not to work ok here?
      1. nine_k · · focus · HN ↗
        No air. No convection, only radiation.
        1. trhway · · focus · HN ↗
          That is what I said.
          1. allannienhuis · · focus · HN ↗
            What you said was just a statement, not something with evidence or reasoning for why it should work. How large of an area is required to dissipate that much heat in a vacuum at a constant rate?
            1. nine_k · · focus · HN ↗
              1m² of perfect black body in vacuum at 343K should emit about 700W, according to the Stephan-Bolzmann formula. Should do for a consumer GPU, or an H100.

              Since the heat distribution over the radiator is not ideally uniform, I suppose that the emitted power will be less, if they want to keep the chips at 70C.

              Since the temperature has the fourth power in the formula, having the GPU work at 100C would increase the radiator efficiency quite a bit.

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