AOCN | Aegis Orbital Compute Node

Program Positioning

The Aegis Orbital Compute Node (AOCN) is a modular compute platform intended for deployment in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The architecture is sized and organized around first-order physical constraints: electrical power generation, waste heat rejection, radiation environment, and on-orbit serviceability.

AOCN is not intended to replicate terrestrial data centers in orbit. It is structured as an orbital compute accelerator for workloads where power density, thermal isolation, or space adjacency dominate over latency or interactive access.

Design Constraints and Assumptions

Thermal scaling: Radiator area and heat transport capacity determine maximum sustained compute power.
Infrastructure separation: Power generation, thermal control, shielding, and communications are treated as persistent infrastructure; compute hardware is replaceable.
Incremental deployment: Nodes are designed to be deployed, serviced, and upgraded independently rather than as a single monolithic structure.

System Architecture Overview

Orbit 500–600 km circular LEO

Compute Payload COTS GPUs and accelerators with ECC and checkpointing

Thermal Control Pumped liquid loops feeding deployable radiator panels

Radiator Area 2,000–5,000 m² (dominant system driver)

Power 1–5 MW class solar arrays with eclipse buffering

Shielding Aluminum hull + targeted water shielding

At steady state, essentially all electrical input power is rejected as heat. Radiator geometry, operating temperature, and loop architecture therefore set the upper bound on continuous compute output.

Scale Reference

Radiator sizing is included here for physical scale reference. One American football field (including end zones) has an area of approximately 5,350 m².

Radiator Area 2,000–5,000 m²
(~0.37–0.93 football fields)

Interpretation Radiator surface area required for multi-megawatt-class systems is comparable to that of large crewed platforms, despite significantly smaller pressurized volumes.

Design implication Modular panels and replaceable wings are treated as first-order infrastructure.

Operational Concept

Modular launch and on-orbit assembly
Robotic and crew-compatible servicing
Swappable compute payloads without de-orbit
Replaceable radiators and solar wings
Autonomous operation with periodic ground tasking

Modularity & Scaling

As deployable surface area increases, structural flexibility, attitude control authority, deployment complexity, and fault-domain size increase nonlinearly. Beyond a moderate scale, distributing capability across multiple nodes becomes simpler than increasing the size of a single structure.

Fault containment: Smaller thermal loops and pressure volumes limit the impact of punctures or component failures.
Control: Shorter spans reduce bending modes and pointing disturbances, particularly for optical communications.
Lifecycle: Compute payloads can be refreshed independently of power and thermal infrastructure.

Architectural Summary

In orbit, compute hardware is not the primary scaling constraint. Power generation and heat rejection dominate system size, mass, and operational complexity.

AOCN treats these constraints explicitly and organizes compute capability around infrastructure that can be assembled, serviced, and expanded using current spaceflight technologies.

Technical Reference

Full technical overview of AOCN — positioning, architecture, thermal scaling, and LEO operating assumptions — in a printable PDF format.

View / Technical Dossier (PDF)

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