Processor Cooling in Space
Processor Cooling in Space
Hi,
I'm an aspiring electrical engineer and computer scientist in college, and I was thinking about a processor in space the other day. At first, I imagined how fast you could overclock it because of the cold environment, but then I understood that without air in space, you can't use a fan to cool it. How are processors actually cooled in space (especially on satellites)?
Heatpipe!
Interesting idea, but space is a vacuum so a closed loop is necessary. The CPUs that aren't inside the spacecraft's internal environment are cooled through evaporation using a heat pipe. They rely on heat pipes because conduction still functions in space, though not convection. Anyway, your CPU would freeze before you could push it overclocked at those temperatures.
Fascinating. I hadn't considered it before. It would indeed become extremely cold. I understand it's cold, but what exactly is the temperature in outer space?
^3k or around -270.3c. The sole warmth comes from leftover radiation after the big bang, gradually decreasing.
Empty areas are around 0k yet they contain very few particles, making it hard to transfer heat effectively. In our solar system, it’s not truly empty. Solar wind constantly strikes, delivering radiation and particles. This interaction actually contributes to heating. That’s why space probes are coated with gold foil—it’s an excellent reflector of heat. Earth benefits from its magnetic field and atmosphere, which bounce back much of the solar heat into space. Satellites operate within Earth’s magnetic zone, and some gases remain in lower orbits. The moon, lacking both atmosphere and magnetic field, experiences extreme temperatures—107°C during the day and -157°C at night. A processor on the moon would reach its maximum temperature before turning on. Physical contact is another method, but space has minimal matter to aid this process. The final option for heat loss is radiation, which travels as infrared and other wavelengths. This is surprisingly efficient; Earth loses heat this way, though its atmosphere slows it down. The moon, without an atmosphere, radiates heat intensely at night, but a processor would likely prevent that extreme drop. Using liquid nitrogen could be another approach.
Hi,
I'm an aspiring electrical engineer and computer scientist in college, and I was daydreaming the other day about a processor in space. At first, I thought it would be really cool to see how fast you could overclock it since space is extremely cold, but then I realized that, since there is no air in space, you couldn't simply put a fan over it and blow nothing onto the processor. How are computer processors cooled in space (and more specifically on satellites?)
Having worked on space-rated electronic CCA's...
Being a vacuum, the primary ways to get rid of waste heat we use in the atmosphere of earth will of course not work. That is convection and conduction into the surrounding air...whether using an 'air' cooler or liquid cooling as they both ultimately transfer it to the air. Ridding a space craft of waste heat is a primary design consideration for everything the engineers do, you can't do it as an afterthought.
The way they do it in space is through radiation. So you will essentially place the processor in close contact with the vehicle's structure and then let that structure radiate the heat to space. If the processor is buried deep in the space craft then you use things like heat pipes (the same things used in finned air coolers) and CCA's that are layered over a metallic core that uses 'wedge locks' to affix them in place. These are long metallic wedges that will conduct heat from the core to the surrounding structure, they can be removed to remove the CCA for upgrades, repairs or whatever.
This obviously affects a lot of things. You have to protect the sides of the spacecraft that are intended to radiate heat to space from direct solar exposure, for instance. For those times you can't prevent exposure systems are designed to be powered down and put in safe modes. For those systems you can't power down they'll put retractable shielding (not desireable due to weight and complexity) or other reconfigurable cooling solutions like re-routing the cooling loops to different radiation areas. You may have read about cooling loop leaks on the space station.
Also part of the process is massive de-rating of all components. That's a process of lowering operating voltages and clock speeds to the lowest they can get by with in order to generate minimal heat.