Halo | Devpost

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Inspiration

Halo is something we've built because data centers are moving up into space, and we want that to become a feasible reality. We hope it becomes the first-pass screening tool companies use to test whether their orbital designs are technically and financially viable.

What it does

Halo is an orbital data center screening tool, you give it a compute load, circular orbit, and cost caps, and it returns solar array sizing, battery and mass requirements and cost per kilowatt for a variety of parameter ranges to determine best design philosophy. This allows companies who want to send data centers into space a first step to determine if their theoretical designs are feasible and financially viable.

How we built it

Frontend & UX

React + Vite for the sliders, scorecard, and sweep
Three.js for a 3D orbit view with the sun on the day side

Physics & Backend

Python code that sizes the solar array, radiator, battery, and mass
FastAPI to serve the results to the page

Live Space Data

LASP LISIRD for real solar irradiance
NOAA SWPC for space weather

Challenges we ran into

Getting the heat math to balance
Sizing up to many cases per sweep without slowing the page
Turning sized hardware into a cost comparison against a ground data center
Deciding which parameters belong in a data center optimization tool

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Built a fully functioning tool that enables data center optimization in space
Uses real data to support the model
Sweeps hundreds of orbits to find the cheapest design, reports a break-even launch price, and charts what moves dollars per kilowatt

What we learned

We learned how to combine live space data with physics-based sizing, turning raw solar and space weather readings into a clear design verdict for orbital data centers. We also learned how to build a full pipeline from a Python engine to a web interface, so every result can be traced back to an assumption and tested against real conditions.