For more than two decades in sourcing and supply-chain architecture, we’ve watched industries scale only when their supply chains become predictable, certifiable and repeatable.
Orbital and lunar data centers are now approaching that same inflection point. Hardware gets us into orbit; governance keeps us there. While we celebrate launch cadences, the orbital-grade supply chain is currently built on a house of cards: bespoke architectures and artisanal standards.
The absence of shared standards does more than slow progress; it distorts the economics. Investors price uncertainty, and in today’s environment, every orbital data center is effectively a first-of-its-kind system. That means unquantifiable technical risk, limited comparables and ultimately a higher cost of capital. Until interoperability and certification frameworks exist, financing will remain constrained not by ambition but by avoidable uncertainty.
In our opinion, this is the most critical missing layer. And without it, orbital data centers will stall before they scale.
Supply chains don’t scale without governance.
In terrestrial data center infrastructure, the turning point wasn’t better servers or better cooling — engineers can solve for this. It was the emergence of standards and certification frameworks that made the supply chain predictable.
These include TIA-942 for data center infrastructure, TL 9000 for telecom quality, SCS 9001 for supply-chain security and ANSI governance rules ensuring openness, balance, due process, consensus and appeals.
These frameworks didn’t appear for philosophical reasons. They appeared because supply chains cannot scale without them.
Today, orbital compute is in the same position that terrestrial information and communications technology was decades ago — but moving much faster, with far higher stakes.
The orbital supply chain is literally improvising — and that’s the problem.
- Every orbital compute concept today is effectively a bespoke spacecraft.
- Every supplier is defining its own qualification regime.
- Every operator is inventing its own reliability model.
- Every investor is underwriting risk without a common baseline.
From a sourcing perspective, this is fragmentation, not progress. And from a supply-chain perspective, it’s a warning sign: No industry scales on bespoke architectures.
Why governance matters more in orbit than on Earth
Orbital and lunar environments introduce supply-chain risks terrestrial frameworks never had to consider: Radiation-driven component degradation, orbital debris exposure, in-orbit servicing constraints, multi-sovereign industrial-base dependencies, dual-use and export-control implications, long-duration lifecycle requirements and thermal rejection in vacuum.
These aren’t edge cases, they are the operating environment.
Without a governance model that incorporates these realities, the supply chain will remain artisanal, unpredictable and unscalable.
What terrestrial governance teaches us
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) provides a useful reference point — not because orbital compute should copy it, but because it shows what mature infrastructure governance looks like.
TIA’s American National Standards Institute-accredited model is built on five pillars:
- Openness — all materially affected parties can participate.
- Balance of interests — no single stakeholder group can dominate.
- Due process — transparent procedures and documented records.
- Consensus — majority support with resolved objections.
- Right to appeal — a formal mechanism to challenge process failures.
This is how terrestrial infrastructure earned trust. This is how certification became meaningful. This is how supply chains became scalable. Orbital compute needs the same legitimacy — but tuned for a frontier environment.
Why we can’t simply port terrestrial standards into orbit
Standards for orbital data centers will need to be written for the specific challenges the industry will face — existing standards can’t simply be ported over. For example, TIA-942 can’t define radiation-tolerant compute architectures, TL 9000 can’t model orbital servicing cycles and SCS 9001 can’t capture cross-sovereign industrial-base risk for dual-use compute nodes.
The orbital supply chain needs a governance framework that:
- Moves faster than ANSI cycles,
- Integrates export-control and national-security realities,
- Supports modular, serviceable architectures,
- Defines orbital-grade qualification pathways,
- Establishes certification marks investors can trust, and
- Aligns multi-sovereign industrial bases.
In other words, orbital data center operators need a TIA-class governance model that’s purpose-built for orbital and lunar infrastructure.
This is where the space community is already pointing.
University of Central Florida astrophysicist Phil Metzger, who recently advised our team, has been clear: space infrastructure will only scale when we treat it as infrastructure — not as a series of one-off missions. His work on regolith mechanics, ISRU and lunar industrialization consistently reinforces the same principle:
predictability, repeatability and standards are prerequisites for sustainable growth.
Orbital compute is no different.
Whether led through a government-industry partnership or an internationally chartered entity, the mandate must be clear: define interoperable standards, certify compliance and reduce systemic risk. Without a recognizable institutional anchor, the path forward remains abstract. With one, it becomes executable.
The inflection point is here.The industrial base is ready. The hardware is ready. The demand signals are real.
What’s missing is the neutral, technical, multi-stakeholder governance entity that defines what orbital compute is, how it is qualified, certified, serviced and secured and how the industrial base aligns.Until that exists, orbital and lunar data centers will remain prototypes instead of infrastructure. If we want orbital compute to scale, the supply chain needs governance — now. Not a consortium. Not a white paper group. Not a vendor-led alliance. A neutral, certification-capable governance body that can:
- Convene hyperscalers, primes, suppliers, launch providers and servicing companies,
- define qualification pathways,
- establish certification marks,
- align the industrial base,
- provide assurance to investors and governments, and
- accelerate — not slow — deployment
This is the missing discipline in the space economy. And until it exists, orbital data centers will remain an inevitability waiting for a governance framework to catch up.
Phil Metzger, director of the Stephen W. Hawking Center for Microgravity Research and Education at the University of Central Florida also contributed to this article.
John David Callison is a global strategic sourcing executive and advisor at Abelian Security Council and elsewhere with more than two decades of experience architecting, negotiating and operationalizing technology infrastructure across hyperscale cloud platforms, AI ecosystems, and mission‑critical data environments.
Joseph Minafra serves as Lead of Innovation and Technical Partnerships for the NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) at NASA Ames Research Center.
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