We describe and analyze a distributed compute architecture for SSO computational satellites that can potentially provide >100 kW compute power per launched metric ton (including deployment and station keeping mass). The architecture co-locates and integrates the solar cells, radiator, and compute functions into multiple small panels arranged in a large array. The resultant large vapor chamber radiator area per panel should permit ICs to operate at junction temperatures near 40*C with benefits in compute efficiency and reliability. Using the structure of the radiator to support the solar cells may also yield a specific power of about 500 W/kg compared to less than 100 for existing conventional implementations. Assuming development of custom solutions for all components, a 16 MW computation, 150 ton satellite comprising a 20 m x 2200 m grid of 16,000 panels can fit in a single Starship hold. The concept is scalable to much larger satellites with higher mass payloads or using on-orbit assembly. We consider panel sizes from 1 to 4 m2 to allow trading vapor chamber heat transport with compute efficiency and inter-panel communication. Assuming a 1 kW/panel design, 512-panel subarrays of the satellite can run a representative inference-only LLM with 500,000 token context window and 128 attention blocks, at a rate of 553 tokens/sec/session, across 256 simultaneous in-flight sessions. A full satellite could support 31 such subarrays, for >7900 inferences at a time.

翻译：本文描述并分析了一种面向太阳同步轨道计算卫星的分布式计算架构，该架构每发射吨（含部署与轨道维持质量）可提供超过100千瓦的计算功率。该架构将太阳能电池、散热器与计算功能集成于多个小型面板中，并排列成大型阵列。由此形成的每块面板大尺寸蒸汽腔散热器面积，可使集成电路在接近40°C的结温下运行，从而提升计算效率与可靠性。利用散热器结构支撑太阳能电池，还可实现约500瓦/千克的比功率，而现有传统方案则低于100瓦/千克。假设所有组件均采用定制化方案，一颗包含16兆瓦计算能力、150吨质量、由20米×2200米网格中16000块面板构成的卫星，可容纳于单艘星舰货舱中。该概念可扩展至采用更高有效载荷质量或借助在轨组装技术的更大规模卫星。我们考虑了1至4平方米的面板尺寸，以便在蒸汽腔热传输、计算效率与面板间通信之间进行权衡。基于每块面板1千瓦的设计假设，卫星中512块面板的子阵列可运行一个具有50万token上下文窗口与128个注意力模块的推理型大语言模型，在256个并发飞行会话中以553 tokens/秒/会话的速率运行。整颗卫星可支持31个此类子阵列，实现超过7900个并发推理任务。