Shouldn't the radiators be directly proportional to the area of the solar panels? (Since there's no one munching on food on board.)
replyyes, exactly. they are going to be absolutely huge and add to launch and engineering costs.
replyEvery part does by definition add to launch and engineering costs…
replyThe point is that heat radiation is not the main deal-breaker regarding this project as some comments in this subthread insinuate.
The point is: the power consumption requirements (quote: considering every satellite still has to dump heat and works just fine) for satellite X is not even close to racks of hyperscaler compute.
replyyes. in general as a rule of thumb your radiator size must scale proportionally to your solar panel size, as parent says:
reply> The ISS's solar panels are MUCH smaller than the radiators.