{"id":"orbital-lifecycle-economics","level":"infrastructure","name":"Orbital lifecycle economics and workload fit","shortName":"Orbital lifecycle economics and workload fit","role":"Compares complete useful service under conditional launch and support assumptions.","description":"An orbital computing proposal must pay for spacecraft, payloads, launch, ground infrastructure, operations, replacements and lost work. Solar energy availability can change operating inputs but does not erase those costs. Suncatcher’s launch-price analysis is explicitly conditional and incomplete as a total economic study; its projected future launch input must not be presented as a current quote. A fair terrestrial comparison uses the same accepted workload, quality and service targets. Space-generated data reduction and ground-user interactive services can produce very different communication costs. A useful scenario identifies the assumptions that allow its budget to close and any unresolved constraint that prevents a useful service.","specs":[{"label":"Economic boundary","value":"Complete lifecycle per accepted result","context":"Launch-only cost is a component, not total cost of ownership."},{"label":"Scenario status","value":"Conditional assumptions and sensitivity","context":"Future prices and fleet-scale availability require explicit uncertainty."}],"interfaces":[{"name":"Physical and operational budgets","direction":"in","signal":"Mass, power, thermal, links, lifetime and service quality"},{"name":"Conditional service economics","direction":"out","signal":"Cost per accepted result and unresolved bottlenecks"}],"tradeoff":"An attractive launch assumption can be outweighed by ground-data traffic, short lifetime, low availability or expensive thermal support.","whyAI":"AI workload fit determines useful results; no universal dollar-per-kW or MW-to-token factor can compare all terrestrial and orbital systems.","related":["orbital-replacement-mass","orbital-link-contacts","orbital-evidence-status"],"sources":[{"title":"Towards a future space-based, highly scalable AI infrastructure system design, v2","url":"https://arxiv.org/html/2511.19468v2"}],"scale":"Payload electronics to fleet and lifecycle; conditional scenarios","kind":"architecture","branch":"Frontier infrastructure","subbranch":"Orbital reliability and lifecycle economics","mechanism":["Choose a concrete workload and matching terrestrial service baseline.","Close energy, thermal and link budgets before assigning sustained useful throughput.","Include complete initial and recurring costs with a consistent lifetime and accounting boundary.","Apply availability and accepted-result criteria without double-counting utilization already in measured throughput.","Vary uncertain launch, mass, lifetime and service assumptions and identify where the preferred option changes."],"misconception":"Comparing launch-only annualized cost to a terrestrial electricity bill is not a full system-cost comparison.","check":{"question":"Which denominator makes an orbital and terrestrial comparison meaningful?","options":["Only nameplate electrical power","Only peak accelerator FLOPS","Equivalent accepted workload results under matched conditions"],"answer":2,"explanation":"Useful service depends on quality, latency and availability, so identical power or peak arithmetic need not deliver identical outcomes."},"science":[{"title":"Launch-only annualization","equation":"Claunch = plaunch m / L","explanation":"plaunch is currency/kg, m kg per payload kW and L useful years; result is currency/(payload kW·year).","assumptions":"Only launch amortization; excludes spacecraft, ground, operations, financing, failures and other lifecycle costs."}],"prerequisites":["orbital-replacement-mass","orbital-link-contacts"],"learningObjective":"Evaluate conditional orbital economics without promoting launch assumptions into complete-system conclusions.","workstream":"W12","visualFamily":"orbital-system","engineeringExample":"Synthetic $500/kg, 20 kg per payload kW and five-year life yields $2,000/(payload kW·year) for launch alone. Doubling mass doubles that component; no token rate or total ownership cost follows from it.","evidenceNotes":"The example is synthetic. The source’s mid-2030s launch-price projection is forecast evidence, not a current market price or a completed feasibility demonstration.","labId":"library","scope":"No current calculator directly models this lesson’s main mechanism. Use the library for related bounds while retaining their stated omissions.","labScope":"No current calculator directly models this lesson’s main mechanism. Use the library for related bounds while retaining their stated omissions."}