Space Jellyfish

Orbital Data Center for Planetary Sustainability

Space Jellyfish is an orbital data center whose form emerges from energy harvesting, thermal dissipation, and maintainability—borrowing not the appearance, but the metabolic logic of one of Earth’s most efficient organisms.

Conceived for Low Earth Orbit, the project mitigates the environmental cost of terrestrial data centers by relocating resource-intensive computation to an environment where energy is abundant and heat can be dissipated without water or atmospheric constraints.

Space Jellyfish reframes computation as an off-planet industrial activity, reducing pressure on terrestrial resources while enabling scalable digital growth. Its algorithmic design process directly couples geometry with energy harvesting, thermal performance, and operational requirements across multiple mission phases.

Energy is collected through a spiraling system of folding solar panels, deployed from a compact launch configuration into a helical geometry that maximizes exposure across changing orbital orientations. The spiral structure minimizes self-shadowing and distributes structural loads efficiently, enabling continuous power generation at high efficiency over extended operational lifetimes.

At the core of the system, computation and energy management are housed within a gyroid-based structural volume, selected for its optimal strength-to-mass ratio and continuous internal topology. Spherical TPU-based computing and collection units are inserted into the gyroid by robotic arms and secured using electroadhesive gripping interfaces embedded within the structure. This robotic assembly logic allows individual units to be removed and replaced at the end of their lifecycle, transforming the data center from a disposable object into a maintainable orbital infrastructure with long-term adaptability.

Thermal regulation is achieved through radiative arms extending rearward from the main body, while communication antennas deploy as slender tentacles. Together, these elements dissipate waste heat directly into deep space and enable high-bandwidth connectivity. The resulting system is an orbital organism that absorbs the computational demands of a data-driven civilization, allowing Earth to remain a place for life rather than infrastructure.