The radiators are significantly smaller than the PV arrays, but not by a massive ratio; looks like about 1:3.6 based on the published area numbers that I could find.
replyIt looks like the ISS active cooling system has a maximum cooling capacity that could handle the equivalent of a single-digit number of racks (down to 1 for an AI-focused rack).
if you were looking at a 10' tall spider and a 36' tall spider, yes they'd both be big but it'd be fair to say that the 10' one is much smaller....
replyThe heat load of the ISS is a handful of astronauts and some equipment and whatever it absorbs from the sun. Not an entire data center or a nuclear rocket which is where the radiator discussion comes into play.
replyThe heat load is equal to the load from the solar panels, to first order. So actually yeah, you CAN compare the size of solar panels to the size of the radiators.
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