And in the next paragraph:

"However, there are niche applications where the much higher costs of computing in space could be justified. Examples include ... active collision avoidance in the increasingly crowded low Earth orbit."

A self-justifying purpose!

Just so that nobody jumps in with what I first wanted to jump in with, this estimate was done with the assumption that Elon Musk's Starship is built, works as advertised, and launch costs are at the lower end of the projected range.

It wasn't an order of magnitude more because of how expensive rocket launches currently are.

(I'm glad that I read the article before arguing this one...)