What will a 100 kW/ton orbital compute satellite look like? We’ve been building a satellite mass-budget model to show how compute satellites will differ architecturally from Starlink. Satcom/Starlink baselines allocate ~35 % of dry mass to phased-array antennas, gimbals, and other continuous Earth-pointing mechanisms required for RF routing. Compute satellites will have no downlink; data moves via laser links to the Starlink constellation. The freed mass is completely reallocated to solar arrays and radiators, shifting us from an RF-routing architecture to a thermodynamic-optimised one. The triangular bottleneck in orbital compute satellites is the three-way interdependence of solar generation, thermal rejection, and compute capability: any single subsystem can only scale as far as the other two allow, so true power-density gains require all three to advance in lockstep, otherwise one becomes the binding constraint. Compute sats have no need for ultra-precise Earth-pointing, so solar arrays can be far lighter and flexible, using passive gravity-gradient and centrifugal tensioning in dawn-dusk SSO. Operating the compute ASICs at ~370 K, exactly as Elon highlighted, exploits the T⁴ scaling of blackbody radiation, boosting net heat rejection significantly, and thereby slashing the required radiator area (and therefore mass) dramatically. We believe radiators must deploy two-sided and sit in the shade of the solar arrays for optimal cold-space view factors, in order to hit 100kW/ton. At first glance, thermal rejection becomes one of the largest subsystems (~34 % of dry mass). Yet this dominance only appears because projected PV efficiency gains and higher chip temperature enable 7× higher power throughput, greater than the expected headroom in radiator efficiency gains. The triangular bottleneck closes cleanly at 100.2 W/kg system power density, almost exactly the line in the sand Elon and SpaceX have drawn. As finance folks who've had the privilege of learning from leading space-industry engineers, we offer this conceptual take with a grain of salt: these 100 kW/ton satellites would likely look quite different from Starlink satellites... We imagine compute satellites will have a compact central bus housing only the dense compute payload and laser links, surrounded by large, light, thin-film solar arrays deployed radially like wings or sails, kept taut by passive gravity-gradient and centrifugal tensioning in dawn-dusk SSO. Paired with them will be two-sided deployable radiator fins, deliberately positioned in the permanent shade of the arrays for optimal cold-space view factors. We are keen to learn more though so please share any suggestions. Read the full analysis here for all our modelling and charts 🧐 research.33fg.com/analysis/t…