Sophia Space and Caltech collaboratively issued Patent No. 12,679,564, titled Space-Based Data Centers. The patent—filed in October 2024 and issued on July 14, 2026—covers architectures for the implementation of large-scale, modular data centers in space. The two companies announced the patent, July 29.
The patent names seven inventors, drawing on expertise from JPL, Caltech, and Sophia Space: Dr. John R. Brophy (JPL), Dr. Leon Alkalai (Sophia Space), Prof. Sergio Pellegrino (Caltech), Dr. Jonathan Sauder (JPL), Timothy P. McElrath (JPL), Dr. Douglas J. Sheldon (JPL), and Don J. Hunter. Alkalai, a longtime JPL Fellow, founded Sophia Space to commercialize the invention in June 2023 as a portfolio company of Mandala Space Ventures, a Pasadena-based venture studio focused on the emerging orbital economy.
Sophia Space is also expanding its R&D investment, which includes a new sponsored research agreement with Caltech to support continued development of thermal and structural technologies for orbiting data center architecture. With Caltech’s Pellegrino, Sophia Space is continuing to research new techniques to scale modular architectures in space using large-scale deployable structures. Under the agreement, Caltech will research and develop light-weight, large-scale deployable structures and thermal management techniques applicable to future Sophia Space orbiting data centers.
“This patent reflects a different way of thinking about computer infrastructure in space. You can’t simply take a terrestrial data center and move it into space. Building data centers in space requires a fresh look at the energy life-cycle problem. Cooling in space is not simple. The only way to cool the data center in space is by radiating waste heat into deep space. Our work invented the ‘TILE’ architecture, a modular, scalable, passively-cooled, computing and data storage unit that can be assembled into a large-scale computing data center surface in space that is constantly powered by solar energy and constantly radiates into deep space,” Leon Alkalai, Founder and CTO, Sophia Space, said in a statement.
