Voyager Technologies‘ CEO Dylan Taylor said two years would be an “aggressive” timeframe for space data centers and cooling remains a problem for the developing technology.
While SpaceX has the heavy lift rockets to bring components to space, Taylor told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan that the lack of a cooling solution to transfer the heat remains a major barrier.
“It’s counter intuitive, but it’s hard to actually cool things in space because there’s no medium to transmit hot to cold,” he explained. “So essentially, all heat dissipation has to happen via radiation, which means you need to have a radiator pointing away from the Sun to do that.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has long touted a future with data centers in space and highlighted the buildout as a primary reason for combining his rocket company SpaceX and his AI startup xAI this week in a deal valued at $1.25 trillion.
Voyager, which went public in June, is widely known for its Starlab project that is set to replace the International Space Station, which is slated to retire in 2030.
Taylor said the company is on track to meet its 2029 launch goal for the project, which it’s working on with Palantir, Airbus and Mitsubishi, and already has its own cloud compute device on the ISS.
President Donald Trump’s plans to boost defense spending and revamp the country’s space program have helped lift interest in space technology investing over the last year. The highly anticipated SpaceX public offering, expected later this year, has also stoked investor interest.
Last year, a wave of space tech companies went public as the IPO market reopened following a yearslong drought.
That path, however, hasn’t always been so rosy for the sector.
Voyager’s stock has lost more than half of its value since its debut, while rocket maker Firefly Aerospace has shed nearly two-thirds in value since its August public offering.
Taylor said Voyager is poised to help lead the charge on data centers in space, helped by its laser communication tools.
“We’re big believers in the technology maturing and our ability to generate data in space and process data in space,” he said.
