Forethought Report: Orbital Data Centers Reach Cost Parity at $100/kg Launch Cost

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Orbital data centers (ODCs) reach overall cost parity with present-day terrestrial data centers at a launch cost of $100/kg, requiring a reduction from the current ~$1,500/kg rate.
Space solar power in dawn-dusk sun-synchronous orbits generates 3-5x more energy than optimal terrestrial sites; space solar becomes cheaper than the best off-grid terrestrial installations at ~$250/kg and cheaper than any current terrestrial option at ~$50/kg.
The primary bottleneck is not launch cadence but chip production rates, with ODCs unlikely to hold a meaningful compute share before 2030 but capable of rapid scaling thereafter.
Thermal management is feasible with passive radiators; while radiator mass is a significant factor (163-346 W/kg), cooling is unlikely to be a major bottleneck if launch costs are low.
Unmaintainable hardware leads to a 9% annual compute bleed, necessitating a ~40% overbuy of non-chip hardware over the data center's lifetime.
Key players include SpaceX (Starship), Google (Project Suncatcher), and China (Three-Body Computing Constellation), with NVIDIA announcing the Space-1 Vera Rubin Module for space-based GPU platforms.

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