{"id":793038,"date":"2026-07-30T09:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T09:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/793038\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T09:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T09:04:10","slug":"sophia-space-and-caltech-claim-patent-for-space-data-centers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/793038\/","title":{"rendered":"Sophia Space and Caltech claim patent for space data centers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">SAN FRANCISCO \u2013 Sophia Space announced the award July 30 of a patent, shared with the California Institute of Technology, covering large, modular space-based data centers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The patent, issued July 14, covers the architecture for a modular, scalable, passively cooled, computing and data storage unit designed for assembly into large computing data centers powered by solar energy. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt is one way of solving the problem of energy in space, meaning energy in and heat out,\u201d Leon Alkalai, Sophia founder and retired NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory technical fellow, told\u00a0SpaceNews. \u201cIt\u2019s not the only way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Space-Based Data Centers patent has its roots in Caltech\u2019s Space-based Solar Power Project (SSPP), an internal research and development campaign to collect solar energy in space and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.caltech.edu\/about\/news\/in-a-first-caltechs-space-solar-power-demonstrator-wirelessly-transmits-power-in-space\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">transmit<\/a> it to Earth. Based on that work, Alkalai and colleagues at Caltech and JPL began exploring the idea of using similar large deployable structures  to gather energy for computing in space. Then, only the data would need to be transmitted to Earth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The seven inventors named in the patent are: Alkalai; JPL engineering fellow John R. Brophy; Caltech Professor Sergio Pellegrino; Jonathan Sauder, former JPL technology infusion group lead; JPL technology consultant Timothy P. McElrath; Douglas J. Sheldon, former JPL mission-assurance manager; and Don J. Hunter of JPL\u2019s advanced electronic packaging engineering section.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The patent illustrates \u201chow JPL, Caltech and private industry can work together to rapidly develop solutions to difficult technical problems for the benefit of the nation,\u201d Brophy said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"438\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/rsz_tile_sat_.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-608093\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Commercial TILE<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To explore commercial applications for the technology, Alkalai founded Sophia Space in 2023 as a portfolio company of Pasadena, California-based <a href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/nine-ventures-join-first-socal-uk-space-accelerator\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mandala Space Ventures<\/a>. After raising $22 million, Sophia Space plans to launch its Thermal Integrated LEO Edge (TILE) compute module in 2027 in an <a href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/sophia-selects-apex-bus-for-on-orbit-computing-demonstration\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apex Nova bus<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe next thing for us is to demonstrate this TILE technology in space,\u201d Alkalai said. \u201cWe\u2019re also raising capital for our next round of financing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the same time, Sophia Space is working with Pellegrino to continue development of thermal and structural technologies for orbiting data center architecture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cCaltech will research and develop light-weight, large-scale deployable structures and thermal management techniques applicable to future Sophia Space orbiting data centers,\u201d according to the news release.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2013 Sophia Space announced the award July 30 of a patent, shared with the California Institute&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[53789,235079,132711,79,722,92518,193],"class_list":["post-793038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-caltech","tag-nasa-jpl","tag-orbital-data-centers","tag-science","tag-sn","tag-sophia-space","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}